Page 2620 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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believe there is some move towards that in the coalition tax package, but I would say it was quite inadequate. I think it should scrap its defence package altogether, frankly, and start again, but then I speak from a particular stance. I would say that to the present Government as well. Australia as a whole is not coming to terms with the incredible need for raising our educational profile, especially in tertiary levels, at all levels of tertiary training.
MR BERRY (Minister for Community Services and Health) (11.26), in reply: I would like to deal first with some of the comments that were made by the Residents Rally, disappointing though they were.
Mr Collaery: I knew you would. Are you hurt, then?
MR BERRY: Not very many of them were hurtful, Mr Collaery, because they were miles away from the truth.
Mr Collaery: Well, they were not worth commenting on, then.
MR BERRY: That is like most of the things you say, but your throwaway lines have set out to damage people in the past, and I suppose damage control is an important part of politics.
It is difficult to see where the Residents Rally stands in relation to the Liberal Party's economic and tax package on welfare services because its members were not very clear as to whether they supported the whole package or only part of it, whether they would be supporters of the Liberal Party or whether they would be supporters of the Labor Party at some future time. But that is not uncommon.
Mr Kaine: I thought he was pro-Labor myself.
MR BERRY: Did you? Well, there you go. It depends which side you are coming from. I find it very difficult to make out where they are coming from. What I did detect through Mr Collaery's speech was an anti-Labor tone and perhaps a little bit of an anti-worker tone, too, because there was not too much about the impact on ordinary workers, the typical populist approach. I must say, in relation to Mr Collaery's reference to my attendance at the residence of the Soviet ambassador for their national day celebrations, that Mr Collaery knows that I am a supporter of world peace; I am a supporter of human rights. One member of his party joined me on a picket line outside the South African Embassy. I applaud his party's involvement to that extent against human rights outrages. I think his comment about the Labor team's attitude to the Holocaust was absolutely outrageous and uncalled for. It was a genuine comment.
Mr Collaery: China? You're going to hear more on this soon.
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