Page 6092 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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Mr Berry: That is right; before you bring them to members of this Assembly.
MR HUMPHRIES: I think, Mr Speaker, that if Mr Berry wants to entrap members into committing breaches of the standing orders he is an unsuitable person to be moving in this place that members should be censured for breaches of them. There is no breach of standing orders. Mr Berry is using his usual grubby, sordid mind to make some sort of point.
Mr Berry: You went to the media, though, didn't you?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I will make it perfectly clear to Mr Berry: Yes, I have discussed the matters before a committee with the media, as I have done on several occasions.
Mr Berry: Urgently reconsider bed numbers, Mr Humphries says.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, this is a quite serious matter. I would ask to be heard in silence and not interjected against by Mr Berry.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed, Mr Humphries. Mr Berry, please let Mr Humphries be heard.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I am entitled to discuss matters before the committee with members of the public, with members of the media. A copy of the report has not been given to anybody other than members of the committee and the secretariat to the committee. I think that in the circumstances it is appropriate that this stupid matter raised by Mr Berry be rejected by the Assembly.
DR KINLOCH (6.34): Mr Speaker, I am puzzled by this because I am a member of the committee and I have not yet received the report; neither has Mrs Grassby. We have a draft of the report. As I understand standing order 242(b), the chairman of the committee can make a comment to the media in some way. We cannot release the report, because it is not there to release. Might I add, and Mrs Grassby will remember the occasion, that we discussed at the end of a committee meeting how important it was to maintain proper confidentiality of the report.
MR COLLAERY (6.34): Mr Speaker, I think the real issue is what Mr Humphries said, and that is not before the house yet. I think we have to hear it. I am prepared to support a suspension of standing orders, providing that this is not a capricious, frivolous application, because Mr Berry will know it if it is. Let us hear what Mr Berry alleges.
Mr Connolly: Can Mr Berry speak again?
Mr Berry: I close it.
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