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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 2413 ..

Mr Berry: Were you trying to set a new standard?

Ms McRae: Why do you not argue the main points, Mr Humphries?

MR HUMPHRIES: I am being accused of lacking the confidence of the house and I think - - -

Ms McRae: Yes, and I gave you a case. Why do you not answer it?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, in the circumstances, I ought to be heard with a little bit more silence. With respect, I have only eight minutes in which to make that case. Even with an extension of time, it is not very long.

Mr Moore: We would give you leave to speak for as long as you want, I am sure.

MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you, Mr Moore. I was told - in fact, Ms McRae confirmed it in her public statements - that there would be a motion against me for misleading the house. The motion before us is not a motion about misleading the house.

Ms McRae: You have misled. That is why you have mishandled.

MR HUMPHRIES: Supposedly, I have mismanaged because I have misled. That was not what Ms McRae said in her statement when she opened this debate, and I submit that it is not what she has been arguing in the course of this debate. Her argument publicly before today was that the case against me was that I had misled the Assembly. Today she has not made a case - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I too am happy to have Mr Humphries speak for as long as he likes in his defence, but what I would like him to do is to stick to the issues, rather - - -

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hird): Is this a point of order?

Mr Berry: It is on an issue of relevance and whether or not the Minister is prepared to address the issues which have been raised by members in this Assembly. I am not particularly interested in what went on in the media outside this place in the lead-up to this debate and Mr Humphries's interpretation of what happened in the media; nor am I particularly concerned about what Mr Humphries thinks about Ms McRae.

MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR HUMPHRIES: As I said, it is only today that we discover what the nature of the motion is. It seems to me that Mr Moore has summarised quite succinctly what the crux of the debate has now boiled down to.

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