Page 2226 - Week 08 - Thursday, 10 September 1992
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Mr Berry: Well, why do you keep blaming us for doing it?
MR KAINE: I am glad that you asked the question, because I will answer it. What has happened is a clear demonstration of what happens when you turn an inquiry loose. It does not always go in the direction in which you want it to go. It is rather curious that one of the first places the police went to was the Minister's own office. By all accounts, they took a photograph of his fax machine and checked out the way things are done in his office. They must have had a darn good reason for going there. These things can backfire on you. It has long been known in government that you do not start an inquiry unless you have some idea of what the answers are going to be.
Mr Connolly: That might be your approach. We investigate crimes without such fear.
MR KAINE: It is interesting that Mr Berry and Ms Follett turn loose a police investigation. Look where it has got them - the front page of the Canberra Times and the editorial of the Canberra Times. Every news media in Australia is talking about this Government and its draconian attempts to stop its public servants leaking a document. It has been properly said that if you have a problem on this matter - - -
Ms Follett: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Mr Kaine has referred to our desire to stop our public servants leaking a document. We have reached no such conclusion. I would ask him to withdraw that inference.
MR KAINE: I will withdraw that. It may have been a public servant, or it may have been a staffer, or it may have been a Minister.
Mr Connolly: It may have been stolen.
MR KAINE: Stolen? I see; somebody is stealing your documents. Now we are getting to the nub of the matter. The way that this Minister expects this inquiry to go is very interesting. The fact is, Madam Speaker, that no member of the Liberal Party in opposition has suggested that the Chief Minister or any other Minister should direct the police. It would be improper for them to do so. I wanted to correct the record in response to the repeated assertion by the Chief Minister that this is what the members of the Opposition have said. We have not said that and we would not have a bar of it. We would be the first ones to try to nail your hides to the wall if we suspected that you had been doing it.
Canberra Times - Police Investigation
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.55), in reply: Mr De Domenico raised the issue of whether the Government would know about what the police were doing before they visited particular people around the town. Well, Ministers did not know about it. Will that keep you happy? We did not direct them and we did not know about it.
Mr Humphries: Not entirely.
Mr De Domenico: You did not know about it?
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