Page 3388 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 24 November 1992
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MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, I ask you to withdraw that statement, please.
Mr Stevenson: Perhaps you could clear the matter up for me as to what I am withdrawing. When Ms Follett said - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, I asked you to withdraw it. Will you just withdraw it, please.
Mr Stevenson: Which comment was it, Madam Speaker?
MADAM SPEAKER: That Ms Follett was misrepresenting.
Mr Stevenson: I thought I said, "Talk about misrepresentation". Was it not a misrepresentation?
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, have you withdrawn the statement?
Mr Stevenson: It is difficult - - -
MADAM SPEAKER: I have asked you to withdraw it. Would you please stand and withdraw the imputation.
Mr Stevenson: Stand and deliver. I find it difficult to, but perhaps I can put it some other way shortly. I withdraw the statement, "Talk about misrepresentation". Perhaps we will not talk about misrepresentation.
MS FOLLETT: I take that as a withdrawal, Madam Speaker. I take it as an unqualified withdrawal, but then I am a generous person.
MADAM SPEAKER: I took it as an unqualified withdrawal, Ms Follett.
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I do find it ironic indeed that Mr Stevenson should take this approach on the referendum when he has spoken on many, many occasions in this Assembly about seeking the will of the people, about referendums, about asking the question and carrying out the will of the people.
Mr Stevenson: Asking the questions.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, please!
MS FOLLETT: On this occasion, because the vote apparently went against him, he denies the whole process. I find it ironic in the extreme again - as does Mr Moore - that Mr Stevenson, at this late stage, gets up and lets us in on the very well-kept secret that he wanted a different system. This was entirely news to me, Madam Speaker, and, I have no doubt, to most of the other members of this chamber.
Madam Speaker, all I can say to Mr Stevenson is that I did not support the Hare-Clark system, my party did not, and, like Mr Stevenson, we did not get what we wanted. But we are here now to implement the will of the people. They quite clearly have chosen the Hare-Clark system with a rotation method which is spelt out in the referendum option sheet, and that is what they are getting.
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