Page 563 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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Mr De Domenico: Name four that we competed against.
MR HUMPHRIES: Name four. Name one. Anybody. Tell us. Come on. There was nobody. What you told this place was untrue. The question is: Was what you told this place a lie? That is the issue before the Assembly today. Did you deliberately or recklessly mislead this place? The fact of life, Madam Speaker, is that Mr Berry had many opportunities, from the first point when this information came forward to a point as recently as a month ago, to correct what he told this house and he did not take advantage of that opportunity because he did not want to.
Mr Berry: The old web of deception, Gary.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry, you know all about webs of deception. You certainly know all about webs of deception. Mr Berry has not spoken in this debate yet. He does not appear to be anxious to do so. He appears to be wanting to wait until he can get as far away as he can from the statements that have been made and try to summarise and make points that will be hard to respond to. Members on this side of the chamber have already responded to the things that have been said. We do not know what he is going to say, if he does speak at all.
I will say this, Madam Speaker: Mr Berry's response to so much of what has been said by this Opposition about this issue has been simply to hurl vitriol. He says that the Liberals are attacking a good deal and are involved in grubby little stunts; they are besmirching or blackening the names of the principals. In fact, in one version of the events he says that the Liberals have caused the whole thing by putting up VicTAB to expelling ACTTAB from the superpool arrangement. Everything that has been said by the Opposition has been denigrated or attacked on that basis. We expect that, of course. It is Mr Berry's modus operandi. He likes to say unpleasant things about people on this side of the chamber. That is part of life in this place.
I think that those attacks on the Opposition have hidden a great weakness in Mr Berry's approach as a Minister, and it is particularly apparent on this occasion. If something adverse to the VITAB deal does come out of Professor Pearce's inquiry, Mr Berry will be saying, no doubt, "Well, I did not know about that. I was advised a certain way, but I did not know that this was going to happen like this". He will be told by those on this side of the chamber that he did know about them because we told him about them, day in day out in this place, week in week out, over a period of four months. We told him about what was going on, in this place and in the media. He will say, "I do not believe the Liberals. I choose not to believe the Liberals". Apparently, Madam Speaker, Mr Berry is so used to discarding the contribution of those in this part of the chamber - denigrating it, attributing mala fides to its motives - that the issue of VITAB and what I think has been called a shonky deal flew right in under Mr Berry's radar. The problems stared him in the face, day after day in this place. In fact, they were served up to him on a platter - to mix the metaphors - but he ignored them.
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