Page 2511 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 13 August 2014
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I was disappointed at what Ms Lawder was saying when she started. Again, I do not want to be accused of verballing or misrepresenting Ms Lawder but there was a notion that the debate was getting personal, that she was beyond that and that it was really about cost and availability of child care. But then she went on to very direct, in my view, personal digs at Ms Berry and me. Ms Lawder made reference, to which Ms Berry has admitted she made an inappropriate remark, to: “Maybe she did not understand because she did not have her glasses.”
Mr Hanson: Are you making excuses?
MS BURCH: No, but there are some who need glasses—I am one of them—to read. And if anyone said that I was somehow deficient because I needed reading glasses, I would take offence at that. There was a mention of glasses in a direct reference—
Mr Hanson: This is an excuse. You’re trying to deny it.
MS BURCH: No, that was a direct—let Hansard stand.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson. Ms Burch, direct your comments through the chair.
MS BURCH: Sorry, Madam Speaker. Through you, there was a reference to Ms Berry—
Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Sit down, Ms Burch. Mr Barr, Mr Hanson, desist, or I will warn you. And then I will name you. Ms Burch has the floor.
MS BURCH: Thank you. As I was saying, Ms Lawder—and I do not have the words right—made the inference that the debate should not get personal. She went on, then, as I have said, to make a personal attack on Ms Berry by the reference that she was not up to speed because perhaps she did not have her glasses. As I have said, I need glasses to read, and I would take it personally as offensive that someone would make reference to this lack of ability by me to read without glasses. And then again, there was the reference—and we have had it from Mr Hanson today—to, was it, “salacious” or “fallacious”? I made a mistake. I misspoke. But others have misspoken. What about that “Canadia” and the “suppository of knowledge”? People misspeak. They apologise, they make remedy.
Mr Hanson: Madam Speaker, on a point of order of relevance, this is a budget debate. If the minister wants to make a defence of Ms Berry’s comment, then I would have thought that would be coming under—
MADAM SPEAKER: But what is the point of order?
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