Page 8 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 May 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
order provides in this democratic Assembly for those in power to vote in those who will be in opposition and the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Kaine - the man on my left, and I say that advisedly - has arranged, certainly with support, for this motion to be put. The Residents Rally expresses its very deep concern, and my party joins all democrats who will deplore across this country the travesty that is now taking place. The Residents Rally predicts that the Chief Minister, who of course has more qualities than to involve herself fully in this, will abstain with her party from a vote on this issue. The arrangement reached between the Liberal Party and the No Self Government grouping will ensure a majority vote for the election of the opposition leader. Abstaining is a vote in itself. The Residents Rally firmly opposes this amendment which will promote the return to this capital of machine politics.
MR KAINE: I object most strongly to Mr Collaery's remarks. I can assure the Assembly that the only action that took place between midnight last night and this morning that might in any way be called Machiavellian was an approach by the Residents Rally to the Liberals to pick up the negotiations that they failed to complete yesterday. There were no other negotiations of any kind. If we are going to sit on the floor of this Assembly and listen to these accusations of party politics, then Mr Collaery better be careful of the sand that he is standing on. Mr Collaery and his party are the only ones that have been playing the big power politics game in the last week or so and I resent the comments that he has made. He has made an implication of impropriety on my part, and I suggest that he has made the same implication about the name of the Chief Minister. There is no foundation for it whatsoever. I am sure you are well aware that the proposal that we put forward for this amendment was specifically that the leader of the opposition should be elected by the parties in opposition in this Assembly. I understand that for technical reasons that proposition was regarded as being contrary to another provision in the existing interim standing orders that requires members to vote and would have been inconsistent. That is why the motion has been put forward in its present form.
There is no implication of any prior arrangement. Mr Collaery needs to back off and withdraw his remarks. On the very first day in the very first debate in this Assembly he is establishing a position of adversarial relationships. I had thought that he and I had been talking for some weeks about a co-operative form of government in which we would all participate, and I thought we were heading towards that. Mr Collaery has made his position quite clear and the electorate out there ought to listen very carefully in the future to the position that Mr Collaery adopts. He presents himself as the knight in shining armour on the white horse, fighting against the two big party machines. His party machine is stronger than
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .