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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4731 ..

MS McRAE: My question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, earlier this year your Government and this Assembly enacted legislation which was intended to ensure that motorists could not avoid the two-hour limit for providing a sample for blood alcohol testing because they were receiving medical treatment. Chief Minister, given your Government's obvious concern to ensure that motorists involved in serious accidents had their blood level alcohol tested and that you presumed that police were on their way when you had your accident, why did you not wait at the scene of the accident so that you could provide a breath test?

Mr Humphries: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. The connection between legislation that the Government has brought forward in respect of the ACT and an accident that took place in New South Wales, where there is no suggestion of any alcohol at all being involved, is a connection which has been disproven by the Chief Minister's statement in this place. In any case, it has no bearing on the Chief Minister's responsibilities before this house. It is not her ministerial responsibility.

MR SPEAKER: I uphold that point of order.

MS McRAE: Mr Speaker, my question goes to how people perceive our Chief Minister. She is the Minister in charge of this place and in charge of the Territory. I will proceed to offer my supplementary question because these are questions that people are putting to me, and I believe they are appropriate for a Chief Minister driving a government car. I will put my supplementary question, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: No. Just a moment, Ms McRae.

Mr Humphries: I rise to take a point of order, Mr Speaker, if she is going to do that. If the question has been struck out she cannot possibly ask a supplementary question.

MR SPEAKER: That is quite correct. The other point is that the Chief Minister is not even responsible for the area to which the question was addressed. That is a matter for the Attorney-General, I would imagine.

MS McRAE: With the greatest of respect, Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister is the Minister for Health. The legislation that applies to everybody else requires that people stay for a test. My question was: Does she really think there are two rules? That is the guts of my question, Mr Speaker, and that should have been the answer that was provided. I am not asserting this. I have been asked to ask this by members in the community who are concerned that a perception has been established that there are two rules.

MR SPEAKER: We could go on forever on this.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, this amounts to a speech. The Chief Minister has answered the question in the comments she has made already. She has fully answered that question.

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