Page 931 - Week 03 - Thursday, 14 March 1991
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Mr Berry: I will withdraw it. If he wants to deny it, I withdraw it.
Mr Collaery: Mr Speaker, I ask that he not only withdraw it but apologise to the house - two things, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Collaery, I understand that a withdrawal in Parliament is in fact an apology.
Mr Kaine: Let us see him withdraw. He has not done so.
MR SPEAKER: He has done so.
Hospital Services Budget
MR BERRY: My question is to the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts, who is sitting there soberly, and I am sure he will be able to answer this question. Will the Minister categorically deny that he had any knowledge on 19 February 1991 of any variation in the patterns of expenditure on the part of the hospital system vis-a-vis the budget?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, this is a question no doubt carefully devised in the fevered mind of Mr Berry to lay some sort of trap, which I have no intention of walking into.
Ms Follett: You did yesterday.
MR HUMPHRIES. That is what you think. That is what you think, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: I do not think that.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am speaking through you, Mr Speaker, to Ms Follett. I would have said that to Ms Follett, but standing orders would not allow that. Mr Speaker, I cannot recall what 19 February was.
Mr Berry: That was the day I first asked the question.
MR HUMPHRIES: If, indeed, 19 February was the date on which Mr Berry first asked that question of me - the question, as I recall it was whether I was aware of any variation in the health budget - the answer I gave on that day was true.
MR BERRY: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Will the Minister categorically deny that he had any knowledge of any variation in the patterns of expenditure on the part of the hospital system vis-a-vis the budget on 21 February 1991, when the Chief Minister in the Assembly agreed to provide the information on the hospital budget blow-out?
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