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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4463 ..
MR WHITECROSS (continuing):
Chief Minister says, "Jump". They should not be about prosecuting Liberal Party agendas decided in advance in the Liberals' party room. They should not be about conducting "Get Wayne Berry" campaigns.
Regardless of what individuals in this place might think about Wayne Berry, Mr Speaker, the Leader of the Labor Party is not in this place to win popularity contests amongst members in this place. He is here to do a job. There are plenty of other members in this place that do not enjoy universal acclaim; but, Mr Speaker, they are there to do a job. Your job is to ensure that all members in this place get to do a job; it is not to indulge in personal animus and not to indulge in pursuing party-political agendas.
MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.22): Mr Speaker, let me start by saying that, if it is the will of the electorate that you do depart this place at the next election, you can be fairly confident that Mr Whitecross will have left through the doorway before you do, if the opinion polls are anything to go by. Mr Whitecross is singularly inappropriate as the man pointing the finger on this particular occasion. Let me say, Mr Speaker, that it is traditionally the job of the leader of the house to defend the Speaker and his rulings, and it is a job which I undertake today with no sense of obligation, but rather with a sense that the conduct which those opposite accuse you of having engaged in is conduct which is not justifiably levelled against you and which is, in fact, a distortion of the real issue which should be under debate today.
We have seen this afternoon during question time in this place, as we have seen so many times in the last three years, a display of behaviour by Labor members opposite which itself is the biggest denigration of the institution of parliament, which ought to be the subject of this debate this afternoon. For you to come in here, Mr Whitecross, and say that Mr Berry's behaviour is justifiable - that his interjections, his talking down of other speakers, his rude and often unparliamentary remarks, his frequent hurling of unparliamentary remarks, his refusal then to withdraw them, and his behaviour generally in this place are, as you put it, "consistent with normal practice and parliamentary procedures as seen in other parliaments" - is a gross distortion.
For you to pretend that Mr Berry has been victimised this afternoon because he has been taken to task by the Speaker for that behaviour is nothing short of laughable. Those opposite know full well that Mr Berry and others on their side of the chamber have tested the limits of the standing orders consistently during question time, and their increasingly impolite, erratic and excessive behaviour has become more prominent as we lead up to the next election. It is no coincidence that that should be the case. The things that have been occurring in this place are not in accordance with the standing orders, either literally or within their spirit, and members opposite know full well that their intention has been to test those things.
No-one has tested them more than Mr Berry. Nobody has breached the standing orders of this place more often than Mr Berry. I have been here for nine years. I have observed Mr Berry during that time. Many of us have been here for a similar period. We know perfectly well that is the case. Mr Berry has been the arch perpetrator of breaches of the standing orders of this place, Mr Speaker. I think, if you go back and check and add up the number of times that he has been taken to task on breaches of the standing orders, you will find that no-one comes even close.
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