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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1527 ..
Mr Quinlan: I suggest, if I may, Mr Speaker, that if you decide in favour of Mr Humphries in any way in this particular exercise, all we have to do, any of us who do not like anything that is said in this place, is overstate it, put the worst possible construction on it, take personal offence and have it struck out.
Mr Humphries: Rubbish. That is not the basis of it.
Mr Quinlan: That is absurd.
Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, that is not what is being said here. I am not saying that this should be struck out because I take offence from it. I am asking for it to be withdrawn on the basis that those words are offensive. Mr Speaker, I will read those words.
Mr Quinlan: I know you have had years of overstatement but, come on, there is a limit. Let us get on with it.
Mr Humphries: I want to read the words into Hansard, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Order, please!
Mr Humphries: I quote:
I suspect that these reductions reflect the personal commitment of the Attorney General and certain members of the Standing Committee to de-fund those activities because the activities have publicly disagreed with those Members' views on sensitive subjects.
The clear inference from those words is that I as Attorney-General de-funded the Women's Legal Centre not because they had a poor case for funding from the government but because I disagree with their views on a particular subject, namely abortion. That is the inference being made, Mr Speaker, and it is an utterly improper inference, utterly improper.
Mr Speaker, I ask members to read those words and ask themselves in all honesty whether they can be construed as something other than offensive words in terms of standing order 54. Standing order 54 says:
A Member may not use offensive words against the Assembly or any Member thereof ...
Are they offensive or are they not? Of course they are. Standing order 55 says:
All imputations of improper motives ...
What is this if not an improper motive, Mr Speaker? It says:
...all personal reflections ... shall be considered highly disorderly.
It is a personal reflection of almost the worst kind. It is one of the worst kinds that we see in this place. Those words were quoted by Mr Berry for the purpose of reading them into Hansard. When they were originally made by Mr Hargreaves he withdrew them.
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