Page 3284 - Week 11 - Thursday, 12 September 1991
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Mr Connolly: That is a contempt of the Assembly.
Mr Berry: I take a point of order. Mr Collaery has described a record of the Assembly as a squalid document. I think he ought to withdraw that.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, I would ask you to withdraw that, if that is the fact.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, the circumstances of the circulation of the document were to allegedly prove a statement that Dr Kinloch had voted against proclaimed places. In doing that, it was a squalid document to put out.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I do not accept that, Mr Collaery. I suggest that the document was not the issue. It was the action that you were talking about.
MR COLLAERY: The action was the squalid issue, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: That is right; so I would ask you to withdraw "squalid document".
MR COLLAERY: I withdraw. If you are suggesting that I said that Hansard is a squalid document, I am sure it is not, and I withdraw any such suggestion.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Please proceed.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, it was suggested, from the squalid manner in which that document was issued, that Dr Kinloch had voted against proclaimed places. It ill behoved the government of the day to do that. They have not brought in the same proclaimed place and they have had plenty of opportunity in this house.
Members will note at page 25 of GALA's final report, for July to December 1990, a statement that authority inspectors commenced a program of routine inspections of licensed premises and that a total of some 65 premises were inspected. In other words, 65 out of 500-odd were inspected. The background to this commencement of routine inspections was strong criticism by the then Commonwealth Assistant Auditor-General of the failure of GALA to carry out routine inspections of premises.
I was astounded, as Attorney, Mr Speaker, to find that the Gaming and Liquor Authority did not conduct routine inspections of licensed premises. I sought to set that straight immediately; but the small number of 65 inspected in terms of full inspections over that six-month period does not hold out much hope, given the depleted staffing resources of the Government Law Office, of any better program to come. I accept that the officers are doing their best, but 65 out of 500 over six months is not an impressive figure.
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