Page 624 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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MR STEVENSON (9.17): The question raised is whether or not this motion of no confidence in Mr Berry is a valid one. I think the debate has shown already that there are questions to answer and the Labor members have done their best to answer them in fine detail, together with providing documentation. The next question we come to is whether it is right that the Assembly should inquire into this matter at the moment, by means of this no-confidence motion, when an inquiry is current. An important point is that statements can be true but also misleading. Mr Connolly wonders about that, but it is true. Many statements are true whilst being misleading. One then could ask whether or not the statement was inadvertently misleading or deliberately misleading. Certainly, truth can be misleading, and a statement that is misleading can also be truthful. We are not looking at that, and we could not expect Professor Pearce to look at whether or not Mr Berry misled this house. I was concerned about whether we should be discussing this no-confidence motion while an inquiry is going on, but I think it is reasonable. This no-confidence motion today does not preclude any further action after an inquiry, regardless of which way the vote goes tonight. It is certainly the correct role of this Assembly to hold the Minister accountable.
Ms Follett said earlier that we should not take action until the facts are available to us, and I would agree. I am sure that none of us will do that tonight, or I certainly hope not. She also said that the Assembly is being asked to act like a jury and that that is inappropriate. I think it is appropriate that we do act not as a jury but like a jury. In other words, we should listen to the evidence, weigh it up and make a decision. It was also said earlier that it is not evidence that we are looking at today. I suggest that that is absolutely incorrect. Of course it is evidence. The dictionary definition of "evidence" is:
That which makes evident; ... Ground for belief; that which tends to prove or disprove any conclusion.
We are looking at evidence, even though it may not meet the legal definition, namely:
Information that is given in a legal investigation ...
Mr Connolly said that tradition has it that parliament waits until the inquiry is over. As I said, I had concerns about this, but I think on balance it is reasonable and it will not interfere with the inquiry if we look at this matter and make a decision tonight. When the Attorney-General mentioned that it was not appropriate, Mr Kaine made the point: If that is the case, why did the Minister not stand down? I thought I heard someone say that he did stand down from part of his responsibilities, although I am not sure about that. Perhaps that could be highlighted after.
The next point that I look at is whether or not there was competition from the other States. I think we could agree that Mr Berry indicated many times in his answers to questions that there was a great deal of competition going on for the VITAB deal. We know, and I do not think this has been disputed, that if there was any competition at all it was minimal. We have two different points of view from Queensland - one saying that they were vying for it and another saying that legally they could not and would not. However, that is not necessarily something we have to rule on. There is no question that the other States were not involved in negotiations with VITAB for the deal. I have seen letters from the various TABs around Australia indicating that point.
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