Page 3048 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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MEMBERS' TRAVEL COSTS
Statement by Member
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.26): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement on this matter, since I raised the question in question time.
Leave granted.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I think that Mr Berry's defence is quite pathetic. It does not matter who authorised it or how it was authorised; the fact is that you, Mr Berry, and, indeed, the Chief Minister and at least one staff member, travelled to a Labor Party convention at public expense. When you start preaching about economy in government, about reducing expenditure, depriving the disabled of funds, depriving the less advantaged in this community of funds, and at the same time you can travel interstate on Labor Party business - - -
Mr Berry: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I understood that Mr Kaine sought leave under standing order 46.
MR SPEAKER: He sought leave of the Assembly.
MR KAINE: Quite clearly, Mr Speaker, we have here a double standard. There is no doubt that it was a simple junket, going to Hobart on Labor Party business and using public funds to do it. I do not see how anybody in conscience could argue that it is an appropriate and proper thing for a Minister to travel on a junket like that at public expense. There is no way that it can be justified. Just wait until you get the public responses; then you will find out whether you are justified or not.
The general public out there are going through hard times, tightening their belts, putting up with reduced expenditure on the part of the Government. When you bring your budget down next week we will see just how tight the belt has to be tightened. You are now finding out, for the first time, how tight it has to be tightened. You are going to wear the odium of it instead of putting it onto somebody else. At the same time that you are doing that you are using their money to travel on Labor Party business. There is no conscience to that; there is no social justice to that; there is no justification for that, and I do not care how you try to dress it up.
For a Minister to say, "But the Administration and Procedures Committee approved it when I was in opposition; therefore I did it" is to completely evade and avoid the ministerial responsibility that you have. You are in the middle of budget debates at the moment in your Cabinet and
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