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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 1 Hansard (29 April) . . Page.. 187 ..

Mr Berry: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I throw something into the debate which may interest you? I anticipate that the Speaker would wish to contribute to this debate, but I think it would be most inappropriate for him to do so from the chair. The normal practice - - -

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order, Mr Berry. Sit down. The leader of the house is defending the Chair.

MR HUMPHRIES: I was in the middle of my remarks, Mr Berry. You could at least wait until I finish before you make those points, if you have any to make. This motion is about - - -

Mr Berry: You always resist interrupting, do you not?

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Corbell was heard in silence and I expect the same courtesy to be extended to Mr Humphries.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, this motion is about the criteria for privatisation - originally of the Labor Party, and now of any party or member of this Assembly. That is what the motion is about. It is about producing or tabling that information. How can you say that discussing a document which has been called for in a motion is not what the motion is all about? That is nonsense.

Mr Speaker, Mr Berry was quick to make comments about my position on points of order and standing orders. I do not think you would need to go back very far through the Hansard of this place to see countless examples of occasions such as this where Mr Berry has raised issues of exactly the same kind and in exactly the same context - hundreds and hundreds of occasions.

Mr Berry: This sets the trend.

MR HUMPHRIES: What was that? This sets what?

Mr Berry: This sets the trend in concrete.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I think Mr Berry is saying by that interjection that he intends to move away from the practice of the past and is saying, "Do what I am now saying you should do in these matters, rather than what I have done over the last nine years". Mr Speaker, I do not buy that argument. I buy the consistency of such debates. If we cannot have a debate about criteria in a motion that calls for the tabling of those criteria, when can we have such a debate?

This motion calls for information to be tabled.

Mr Corbell: Move a substantive motion on the criteria.

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