Page 2690 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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MR SPEAKER: I will review the Hansard and take advice. Let us get on with it. Please proceed.
MR BERRY: We have also been lumbered with half-truths and spite, continuing spite, about Mr Moore's departure from the Residents Rally.
Mr Jensen: It has nothing to do with it.
MR BERRY: You are biting again. If it has nothing to do with it, why do you bite all the time? Why do we have these obsessive accusations about some sort of wrongdoing in relation to Mr Moore? It has just got to the stage where it is over the top. The innuendo - - -
Mr Collaery: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. There has been absolutely nothing that merits Mr Berry putting on the record that there has been some suggestion of wrongdoing by Mr Moore. That should, in Mr Moore's absence, be withdrawn. I stand in defence of Mr Moore on that point. No-one has suggested that there has been any wrongdoing by him. Mr Berry is on the record as saying that someone has suggested that. I ask that he withdraw that imputation.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I uphold your objection, Mr Collaery. There was no imputation against Mr Moore, other than that phrased by you, Mr Berry. I would ask you to withdraw that.
MR BERRY: I withdraw that, Mr Speaker; but I will say that I am sick and tired of the spiteful approach that has been coming from Residents Rally members in relation to Mr Moore. It is not my job to defend Mr Moore; he is quite able to do that himself. But the trouble with the behaviour of Residents Rally members is that they interfere with the legitimate business of this place with all of their spiteful rantings.
Mr Speaker, the first half-truth that we heard tonight from Mr Collaery was in relation to an auditor in the ACT. He said that we did not have an auditor. Well, we did have an auditor. We had the Commonwealth auditor. That is another untruth. I think those sorts of things have to be rectified on the record. These rantings from Mr Collaery have to be scrubbed from the record. He is not approaching the issues which were raised by the Chief Minister in relation to report No. 8 which we received this afternoon.
The Opposition benches seem to be suggesting that the Labor Government warmly embraces patronage as a means of selecting people. We are not going to do that; it is a hundred years dead. All of these sorts of positions are quite appropriately advertised and filled on merit. There is no argument that can carry any weight that would cause this Government to deviate from a course of merit selection for people in these sorts of positions. It is outrageous to suggest that the Government should just reappoint and reappoint and reappoint.
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