Page 2922 - Week 13 - Thursday, 23 November 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Whalan: Have you read the transcript? Do you know of the subsequent legal action which has been taken?
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker - - -
MR SPEAKER: Certainly I do not, Deputy Chief Minister. Mr Kaine?
Mr Whalan: I would submit then, on the basis of that - - -
Mr Kaine: The Minister is trying to intimidate you, Mr Speaker. He hasn't the right to interrogate you on this matter.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Deputy Chief Minister. I request Mr Kaine to ask the question again so that I can again listen to the point raised.
MR KAINE: I am quite happy to do so, Mr Speaker. My question is: why did the Chief Minister have her senior private secretary directly approach Mr Collaery on this matter - and why only Mr Collaery, out of all of the members of this Assembly - if it is a party matter that is of no concern to the Government?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I am happy to answer the question. The officer to whom Mr Kaine refers is an office holder in the party. It was in that capacity that he became aware of the donations in his weekend perusal of party records. He asked me whether I believed he should bring it to the attention of parties which we believed, on the best possible advice, would be voting with the Government on the video tax Bill, and I asked him to do that. He spent a couple of days trying to contact Mr Collaery for that purpose, and he also contacted Mr Duby and, I think, Ms Maher to alert them to the fact that there was this donation. It was just a routine matter.
Mr Humphries: Mr Moore?
MS FOLLETT: I do not know whether he contacted Mr Moore. But he did not contact only Mr Collaery. It was only Mr Collaery who demonstrated a total incapacity to deal with honesty and a total incapacity to understand a sensitive issue and who sought to make total political capital out of it.
MR KAINE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. If this donation was a party matter and had nothing to do with the Government's policy of putting forward an X-rated video Bill, I repeat: why did the Chief Minister attempt to influence Mr Collaery?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, I object to the terms of that question. There was absolutely no attempt to influence anybody, but merely to inform them, and I would ask that that inference be withdrawn.
Mr Kaine: I withdraw the inference, Mr Speaker.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .