Opposition MP Erwin Adderley has denied claims the Gibbons family are money mad and praised them for helping him, and others like him, get a head start.

Tourism Minister Renee Webb had questioned claims by National Liberal Party spokesman Graeme Outerbridge that the Gibbons family had done more than most to improve the lot of the disadvantaged.

She said: "All I know about the Gibbons people is (they are into) making money.

"If they have done anything else that's fine.

"The image of them is exactly what I said."

But Mr. Adderley said he had personally benefited from a two-year scholarship to Berkeley Institute in days when it was common for people to leave school at 13-years-old.

He said there were many others who had benefited from Edmund Gibbons scholarships, set up by the family patriarch.

And he denied the Gibbons family had always been rich but instead had built themselves up through hardwork

He said: "His family, like a lot of black families, had formed their company through sweat equity."

Mr. Adderley said his father had admired Edmund Gibbons and had taken a similar path.

These views were echoed by Mr. Outerbridge who had reacted to earlier statements by Ms Webb in the House of Assembly about the Gibbons family.

He said: "Ms Renee Webb is totally wrong concerning the Gibbons family.

"This family, more than any other, has worked hard for their success and helped more disadvantaged Bermudians than just about any other Bermudian family in Bermuda.

"Grant Gibbons is not deserving of crude remarks directed at him by the Government as, unlike the majority of white Bermudians of his social background, he has been involved in using his talent for his Country."

In her House of Assembly speech Ms Webb had spoken of it being a Kodak moment the minute a Gibbons became a man of the people.

But Mr. Outerbridge said: "The Kodak moment was her ignorance of the significant contribution of the Gibbons family.

"For the record generations of Gibbons's have been men and women of the people."

He said Bermudians simply wanted good Government not race politics and the PLP Government was repeating the mistakes of the past UBP Government.

But Ms Webb stuck to her guns and said the Gibbons empire had been built on the backs of labour.

She said her original comments had been in context of responding to the UBP's reply to the Throne Speech.

She said: "I think, in this case, Graeme is not behaving as a man of principle but rather simply defending one of his own."

And she said Mr. Outerbridge had said nothing when the UBP's Jamahl Simmons had said the Smith Government was "drunk on power and drunk on champagne".

She said Bermuda as a whole was better off after four years of PLP Government, not just its supporters, as could be seen by the hundreds of millions of dollars which had flooded into the financial industry.

"That benefits all Bermudians, the Hotel Concessions Act benefits all Bermudians."

Ms Webb said exemptions on the 60/40 rule for the banks had benefited shareholders who saw their shares go up from $30 to $50 in a few months.

"I would say most PLP supporters don't have shares in the bank or own hotels."

Dr. Gibbons declined to comment about his family but said his leadership was about serving all, not just a select few.