Page 2694 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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If Mr Kaine would care to look at the later letter that I have sent to Mr O'Neill, I have in fact entertained the idea of putting a finishing date if that will make him happier, or Mr Kaine happier. I am quite prepared to entertain that. That is the only difference between what I have done and what Mr Kaine has done, and the hysteria opposite is out of all appropriateness to this situation.
Mr Speaker, Mr Collaery made a statement in passing, and I will quote again: "If she has a problem with the present Auditor-General ...". Mr Collaery, I have no problem with the present Auditor-General, and I wish to have that on the record. As I said in my statement, I believe that the present Acting Auditor-General conducts his role in a totally appropriate and totally independent manner, and no action that I have taken or failed to take will change that. He continues to act as Auditor-General, as he did under Mr Kaine.
Mr Kaine finally asked why I had not taken the same action in relation to all agency heads. The fact is, Mr Kaine, that no other agency head's acting appointment expired on 30 June 1991. Mr O'Neill was perhaps in the unfortunate position of being the only person to whom that situation applied. Mr O'Neill was the only person who was, in effect, out of a job because Mr Kaine had put an end date on his acting arrangement - 30 June 1991. So, there is no question of this situation applying to any other agency head. It clearly does not. For Mr Kaine, in his hysterical fashion, to imply that I had somehow singled out Mr O'Neill for special treatment is misleading; it is a gross overreaction and it is a total lack of objectivity in a situation that I think requires a cool head and total objectivity.
So, I claim to have been misrepresented on those points, Mr Speaker. I hope that all members will take my explanation of them in a spirit of open-mindedness, not with the total histrionics that we have had so far in this debate.
ELECTRICITY AND WATER (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
[COGNATE BILL AND STANDING COMMITTEE REPORT:
WATER SUPPLY (CHEMICAL TREATMENT) (REPEAL) BILL 1991
SOCIAL POLICY - STANDING COMMITTEE - REPORT ON WATER FLUORIDATION]
Debate resumed from 7 August 1991, on motion by Mr Berry:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with the Water Supply (Chemical Treatment) (Repeal) Bill 1991 and the Standing Committee on Social Policy report on water fluoridation?
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