Page 3952 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is probably more along the lines of a personal explanation; but, Mr Berry, if what Mr Humphries said is correct - and I was not there - that might be an imputation. Would you withdraw any imputation, and continue.
MR BERRY: Mr Deputy Speaker, I withdraw that. Mr Humphries did something, all right; but it ended up with a $17m blow-out - and that is something that he will not be able to criticise this Government for. This is a budget which is aimed at bringing the health service into line. It is about making sure that quality government - not the sort of government that was applied by the ragtag Alliance Government - is given to the people of Canberra. And, of course, at the end of the day, we will be proven correct.
MR STEVENSON (4.06): If the indication by people in the community is to be heard, the police, the nurses, the motorcycle riders and the people involved in non-government schools are not happy.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time for the discussion has now expired.
PERSONAL EXPLANATION
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Deputy Speaker, I have a personal explanation to make under standing order 46.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Certainly. Go ahead, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: During that debate Mr Berry made reference to a press statement in which he attributed to me a comment that I had known about budget problems in October-November, presumably meaning October-November of 1990. Mr Berry clearly has misread the newspaper article that he was referring to. I was making reference to Mr Berry's budget in 1989, not to our budget in 1990. I certainly did not know about any budget problems in October or November of 1990.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Berry, do you claim to have been misrepresented, too?
MR BERRY (Minister for Health and Minister for Sport): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will accept Mr Humphries' explanation - - -
Mr Humphries: Is he making a personal explanation, Mr Deputy Speaker?
MR BERRY: And, of course, that supports my accusations on many occasions that he knew about it for a long time from 1989 and did nothing.
Mr Humphries: Mr Deputy Speaker!
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .