Page 3964 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 23 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Ministerial Arrangements
MR WOOD (10.17): Mr Speaker, I want to read a short paragraph from House of Representatives Practice, page 294. Its subtitle is, "Announcement of ministerial arrangements". It reads:
The Prime Minister from time to time informs the House of changes in the Ministry, of the absence or illness of Ministers, of any acting and representational arrangements that are made within the Ministry, and of changes in departmental and administrative arrangements. It is the practice for such an announcement to be made before questions without notice to assist Members in directing their questions.
Today, the Chief Minister walked in with his Government colleagues. The Deputy Chief Minister was absent in Brisbane - and that is a quite reasonable thing to happen - but no announcement was made and no statement was made. After question time, with prodding from the members of the Opposition, the Chief Minister made some rather disdainful comment, as though we did not need to know these things. Mr Speaker, I do not know whether the Chief Minister is simply incompetent - perhaps he forgot what he needed to do - or whether he holds this parliament in contempt in that he has no respect for it and the traditions on which it is based. Certainly, his actions last week showed a lack of respect for this parliament. I hope that on future occasions, if any Minister is absent, the normal courtesies will be followed.
Gulf Crisis
MR STEFANIAK (10.19): I would like to endorse Mrs Grassby's general comments. I think there has been some limited hysteria - and I am pleased to see that it is limited in Australia - in some actions directed against people who are of Arabic extraction - not necessarily Iraqi extraction either - as a result of the tensions in the Gulf. This, unfortunately, is not new. I can recall in Australian history similar reactions against Germans and Italians in World War II and World War I. A quite loyal German population - Australians of second and third generations - was badly treated as a result of hostilities between the then British Empire and Germany in World War I. In the United States there were Japanese units from Hawaii who fought with great distinction with the US forces in Europe and, of course, there was a lot of criticism of the way that Japanese Americans were treated during World War II.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .