Page 3111 - Week 14 - Thursday, 7 December 1989
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MR WHALAN: There is nothing. He is going to be at arm's length; I can just see him standing there at arm's length. He will stand there all day long with his arm outstretched - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Whalan, please resume your seat.
Mr Jensen: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; I am afraid he is doing it again. He is not debating the motion of adjournment but an entirely different matter altogether.
MR SPEAKER: I will take that point of order. Please stick to the point, Mr Whalan.
MR WHALAN: But, Mr Speaker, look at the list. Poor old Gary is just going to be bored rotten. There will be nothing to do. They have taken welfare and given it to Bernard and everything else is stripped off so that he will have the hospitals run by an arm's length board.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Whalan, resume your seat. We are debating an amendment proposed by you and I really believe you are away from your point. Please proceed closer to the point.
MR WHALAN: Mr Speaker, we have put on notice an MPI for today, and all the indications are that this Government is afraid to stand up and be counted, afraid to subject itself to scrutiny. Its members want to hide away so that the press cannot see them, so that the press do not have the opportunity to analyse them and to identify the divisions and the differences that exist between this "gang of 10". It is because of this that they are seeking to move the adjournment so that they can scuttle back to their holes and they can hide away there while they work out some clandestine explanation for what their aspirations for the future are. But where they should be, Mr Speaker, is here in this chamber where the opposition can have an opportunity to press them, to ask questions.
I, personally, have a whole range of questions to ask Mr Kaine that I would like answers for. I think that the people of Canberra are entitled to know the questions and also know the answers from Trevor Kaine. But are we going to have that opportunity?
Mr Wood: Will we have it next Wednesday or Thursday?
MR WHALAN: Certainly, on the basis of this we will not have the opportunity on Wednesday. What happens on Thursday remains to be seen. Will they allow us a question time then? Will they gag us then? I ask you, Mr Speaker, is this going to be the pattern that is going to continue? I am not blaming you, Mr Speaker. You are a person of considerable integrity. It is the others who are likely to be involved in this plot to deny democracy to the citizens of the ACT.
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