Page 3082 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 17 November 1992
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Mr Lamont: Madam Speaker, I take a point of order.
MR KAINE: What is the point of order?
Mr Lamont: You are implying improper motive in a member of the Estimates Committee - - -
MR KAINE: No, I am not.
Mr Lamont: Yes, you are.
MR KAINE: I am not. I am merely saying that you were directed not to be there.
Mr Connolly: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. That is making a very serious allegation of a breach of privilege. For any member to be ordered not to attend to their duties, the person who gave the order would - - -
MR KAINE: Madam Speaker, I withdraw that.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Connolly, I believe that the point of order has been understood now.
MR KAINE: I happen to know that on the very morning of the meeting of 5 November when Ms Ellis could not be at the meeting, she happened to be sitting in another committee room waiting for a quorum to be established for the meeting of another committee. She was not available - - -
Mr Lamont: That she is the chair of and it was a public hearing.
MR KAINE: Now we are making a judgment about what is most important. Since she did not have a quorum she might have taken the trouble to come along to the Estimates Committee and to venture an opinion.
Ms Ellis: I take a point of order, Madam Speaker. There is a bit of misrepresentation there. I did present myself to the committee meeting that Mr Kaine is referring to before he arrived at 9 o'clock.
MR KAINE: She walked in and she walked out again without making any contribution to the meeting.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
Ms Ellis: Excuse me; I have not finished my point of order. I went into the committee, wrote a note to the secretary explaining what I had to do, and left. Mr Kaine arrived later.
MR KAINE: Now the blowtorch is on her belly. It is all very well to criticise Liberals for not being at Estimates Committee meetings. You get up and say, "The Liberals did not attend Estimates Committee meetings"; but when it comes to you not attending you do not like being accused of not being there, do you? Well, the circumstances are exactly the same. There were legitimate reasons why some Liberals could not attend meetings of the Estimates Committee on particular days. It in no way detracted from the value of the Estimates Committee process. If any one of the Ministers can tell me that they did not get interrogated fully on every day of the Estimates Committee meeting - - -
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