Page 2223 - Week 08 - Thursday, 10 September 1992
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What I said was that the policy of the Alliance Government was as annexed to the memo or the minute of Mr Stephen Hunter, which Mr Lamont referred to, of 8 March 1991. Indeed it was. I quoted in full from the first two paragraphs of that document.
I contrasted that not with the other minute of 2 January, which indeed is the same as the minute of 8 March 1991, but with the minute which the Chief Minister at first denied even existed. She then conceded today, in answer to prodding questions from the Opposition and from Mr Moore, that it did exist. That does say something quite different from what was said in either the minute of 8 March 1991 or the minute of 2 January 1992. That was the point I was making. I still think, Madam Speaker, that this document, which is simply an extract - - -
Ms Follett: I have never seen that document.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is an extract from the one you tabled today. It is the same thing.
Ms Follett: How would I know that?
MR HUMPHRIES: It is an extract from that document. The Chief Minister still has to explain how it is that that document came to be released, supposedly on the instructions of Mr Bill Harris, Secretary of the Chief Minister's Department. Someone here has made a very big mistake. The Chief Minister says that it is not her. Okay, we will accept that for the time being. She also says that it was not Mr Bill Harris's mistake. Well, someone, some apparently highly trained, highly paid lawyer, has made a very large mistake because he has paraphrased or summarised the earlier rules in a quite different way from the way that I would summarise them or that anybody else in this chamber would summarise them. He has taken those rules a great deal further than anything which is contained in the documents that we have seen here today.
Mr Berry: I do not think so.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry does not understand the point. The point about those earlier minutes is that it is not necessary to refer everything to a Minister. The point of this minute is that it is necessary to refer everything to a Minister. That is the difference. This document says that regular approaches, and by implication, the disclosure of information on constituency matters to MLAs, are traditional and appropriate. That is what it says.
Mr Connolly: "In any event".
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes; and, in any event, in some cases you can refer things to agency heads only, not to Ministers. That is right. You can refer things to agency heads only, not necessarily to Ministers. That is not what this says.
Mr Berry: It means the same. The Minister hears about it anyway.
MR HUMPHRIES: I hope that Mr Berry's confusion is cleared up quickly. If what Mr Berry has to say is the case, this is an escalation of the previous policy. It was not the policy of the Alliance Government. I hope that the Chief Minister will disclose - - -
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