Page 2784 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 August 1991
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AUTHORITY TO RECORD AND BROADCAST PROCEEDINGS
Motion (by Mr Berry), by leave, agreed to:
That the Assembly authorises -
(1) the recording on video tape without sound by television networks of proceedings during question time today, Wednesday, 14 August 1991;
(2) the use by any television station of any part of the recorded proceedings in subsequent news, current affairs and documentary programs and not for the purposes of satire or ridicule; and
(3) the taking of still photographs during question time on Wednesday, 14 August 1991, and the use of such photographs in the print media generally.
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Auditor-General
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, at around 8 o'clock last night you tabled in the Assembly a letter addressed to the Auditor-General and dated 12 August 1991. Can you give the Assembly an unqualified assurance that that letter was written in fact on the 12th and not on the afternoon of 13 August? Secondly, can you explain how it is that a letter tabled in the Assembly last night at 8 o'clock was not received by the addressee until 2 o'clock today, and then only after he asked for a copy of it through FOI procedures?
MS FOLLETT: I thank Mr Kaine for the question. Mr Kaine, I can indeed give you an unqualified assurance that the letter was not written yesterday. In fact, I signed it on Friday night. As is the nature of office procedures, having signed a large quantity of material on Friday night, it was not dealt with out of my office till Monday morning. So, the date on it is the date that it was processed through Executive Services, as I am sure you know.
Mr Speaker, I am unable to account for the fact that Mr O'Neill did not receive the letter until today. It does seem to have taken some time in the post. Immediately on the advice of Mr O'Neill that he did not have a copy, he was in fact provided with a copy - not under the terms of the FOI request, but in fact as a simple courtesy. He obviously had not received it; so he was provided with a copy. That has now occurred. As members are aware, the ball is really in Mr O'Neill's court now to respond to that letter, and I trust that he will do so.
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