Just out of curiousity...

Yes, it's late.

Yes, I was out tonight entertaining a visitor from the federal government on George Street as part of my job.

So, yes, maybe I'm wrong with the following point which has drawn my attention.

But to the best of my knowledge, it's been the Premier's official line that he was unaware of the ER/PR testing problems before October 2005, even if people in his office knew about it.

And, alright; let's assume that this is some kind of crazy bizarro universe where dogs walk people and McDonald's is considered part of a balanced diet and everyone in the Premier's office can know about something as important as messed up breast cancer testing results and somehow keep it a secret from the most controlling head of government since J.R. Smallwood.

For the sake of argument, let's pretend this is Economics 101 and make this fairly unrealistic assumption.

Wouldn't this following exchange then put a hole in the entire line of argument?

MS JONES: [...] the first account of this issue known in the Department of Health was under your government in July of 2005. That is the facts.

Let me ask this question, Mr. Speaker. The Premier stated yesterday that he could not recall whether senior staff in his office briefed him on the ER-PR testing issue in July of 2005. So I ask the Premier: Have you since asked your staff, did they brief you at that time or did they not?

PREMIER WILLIAMS: I have had that conversation with my staff, and council for the commission has also had that conversation with my staff when my staff were interviewed by Mr. Coffey at the commission and we willing went down and undertook those interviews. Quite frankly, my staff and myself do not remember a conversation.

Now, I will repeat it again. That does not mean it did not happen. I have thousands and thousands, as you do, conversations in the course of a year and some of them cannot be remembered. I can tell you something, if there is something of major importance that was put before my staff and presented as a major issue and then was presented to me, I would certainly remember it, but I certainly cannot remember it. I can tell you that the practice of my staff, who are extremely professional, when critical matters come into that office to our attention, then they come to my attention. This particular note that came in on that day at 2:30 in the afternoon said that this matter required no action.

So, he was told about this in July 2005, but since it "required no action" he conveniently forgot about it until October. This makes perfect sense.

Frankly, I'm not sure I could have come up with a more doubleplusgood answer if I was paid to write it.