Page 1696 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
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MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Kaine, I will take what was a point of order in your speech when you asked whether it was proper for the Assembly to discuss this. Because the Assembly gives leave, it is out of my hands. Once leave is given for a motion to be put, it is the will of the Assembly that it continue. So in that matter it is not appropriate to - - -
MR KAINE: That is the response I would have expected.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Kaine, I point out to you that any one dissenting voice can stop something continuing. Leave is granted by the entire Assembly.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.48): Madam Speaker, I will be very brief; but I wish to remind Mr Kaine of events in early 1989, when by a vote on the floor of this Assembly the standing orders were changed. This was very early in the life of the Assembly. The purpose of that change was quite specific. It was to give special recognition to a member of this Assembly. That member was to be known as the Leader of the Opposition, namely, Mr Kaine. I have no doubt that at the time Mr Kaine did not oppose either that vote or that change to standing orders or this Assembly's right to make such a change. For Mr Kaine to try to pull the wool over members' eyes in this way by asserting that this is in some way creating a precedent is absolutely false.
I would like also to refer to Mr Humphries's comments in this debate - if I could dignify his comments with such a term. There is no doubt in my mind that whenever the name of Mr Berry is mentioned some members lose all sense of perspective, and Mr Humphries leads the charge. Whenever he is stuck for an argument, whenever he is feeling particularly vindictive - as he so often is - he simply plays the Berry card; he goes to town on a personality within this Assembly. I think that is a disgraceful way to behave. Mr Humphries has been consulted on this matter, and he repaid that consultation with a display of the most churlish behaviour that I can remember in this place.
Mr Stevenson also is not averse to playing not only the Berry card but the politician card. Mr Stevenson comes into this place day after day, draws his salary and pretends not to be a politician. Mr Stevenson, who has one of the - - -
Mr Stevenson: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. I think that calling me a politician was not fair; it was not a nice thing to say at all.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Stevenson, there is no point of order.
MS FOLLETT: Need I say more, Madam Speaker! Mr Stevenson came into this Assembly under fraudulent circumstances, claiming that he would abolish it. He has ever since referred to it with contempt. Now he denies the very calling he has so enthusiastically appreciated and benefited from for five years now. It is utterly fraudulent, and he pretends that that is somehow an argument against a motion before this Assembly.
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