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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 1993 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

They are trying to work out how they can make a profit in the ACT marketplace. The myth - the lie - perpetuated by those opposite is that somehow there is huge profiteering going on in the ACT marketplace which government can crack down on. There is not, and the answers to the problems of higher prices are much more complex than that.

MS McRAE: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Minister, is it not really the case that it is your slavish support of oil companies and the systematic closing down of suburban petrol stations - - -

MR SPEAKER: Order! No preamble. Ask the question.

MS McRAE: This is all part of the question. Is it not the systematic closing down of the suburban petrol stations in favour of the larger regional stations that is the cause of the problem we have?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, how pig ignorant can you get? Ms McRae has had to find a supplementary question, so she has asked some stupid question. What service stations have we closed down, Ms McRae? Name one.

Ms McRae: Mr Speaker, am I allowed to answer these questions? Is this a new trend in question time?

MR SPEAKER: No.

Ms McRae: I am quite happy to take the floor, Mr Speaker. I do think he is transgressing standing orders.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down, Ms McRae.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, Ms McRae is usually very willing to interject on other speakers in this place.

MR SPEAKER: Do not provoke her, Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: I now invite her to interject - just one name, just a suburb. Speak up. I cannot hear you, Ms McRae. No, Mr Speaker, there are not - - -

Ms McRae: I would hate to be discourteous to you, Mr Speaker, so I will keep very quiet.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, those opposite should stop peddling the lie that they, in fact, have some magic solution to lower petrol prices which somehow this Government is not - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, Mr Humphries made the clear imputation that people on this side of the house were liars, and he should withdraw it. The phrase "should stop peddling the lie", I think, suggests that people are liars.

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