Page 2693 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (8.37): I seek leave to make a statement under standing order 47, Mr Speaker.
Leave granted.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, a number of members have totally misrepresented me on this matter. I think it is extraordinarily regrettable that both Mr Kaine and Mr Collaery should choose such intemperate language and intemperate attitudes to deal with a sensitive matter to do, in effect, with staffing. The first issue which I wish to take up is Mr Kaine's most unlovely expression that I had "screwed it up". They are his words, not mine.
Mr Kaine: So you did.
MS FOLLETT: They are most regrettable words, Mr Speaker.
Mr Kaine: All you had to do was reappoint the Auditor-General.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MS FOLLETT: Thank you. They are most regrettable words and in my view they are not parliamentary; but I think that, given Mr Kaine's extraordinarily agitated state at the time, it would have been unwise to challenge him on them. The fact is, Mr Speaker, that both Mr Kaine and I have followed precisely the same course in relation to the filling of the position of Auditor-General. Mr Kaine made an acting appointment of Mr O'Neill.
Mr Kaine: But you have not.
MS FOLLETT: I have made an acting appointment of Mr O'Neill.
Mr Kaine: The circumstances were a little different, Chief Minister. You have to admit it.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, if I may be heard: I am fed up with Mr Kaine continually interrupting.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MS FOLLETT: Mr Kaine made an acting appointment of Mr O'Neill with a fixed time of expiry, namely, 30 June 1991. I have made an acting appointment of Mr O'Neill with a date of expiry - and I will quote from the instrument of appointment - "ending when the office is filled". Mr Speaker, any suggestion that I have filled that position at my whim or at the whim of the Government is absolutely untrue. The only difference between what Mr Kaine did and what I have done is that Mr Kaine put a finishing date and I have said "when the office is filled".
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .