Page 4941 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 26 November 1991
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Attorney-General's Department (Government Law Office)
Proposed expenditure - Division 100 - Legal Services to Government, $11,464,800
MR COLLAERY (8.54): I rise to congratulate all those who work in the legal services to government for their efforts in light of the enormous strains that they have been under in forming, over the last two years, a law office that did not exist prior to self-government, and for securing in the budget process an appropriation of this size. There is quite an anti-lawyer instinct in the Labor Government; one detects it at every turn, and I am pleased to say that they did not get on top of this group.
Mr Berry: Here we go; more half-truths.
MR COLLAERY: Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: Are you prepared to ask Mr Berry to withdraw? Are you going to ask him to half withdraw his half-truths?
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: I did not hear what Mr Berry said.
MR COLLAERY: I see. Thank you, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker. The legal services to government are an essential part of government. Good government seeks legal advice. When we wanted to litigate the Gowrie Hostel land grab by the Commonwealth, with the Chief Minister's endorsement, we put the matter through the courts. We did not win. We used eminent counsel, now a judge, and we lost. We used the Government Solicitor's Office for advice before we committed the revenue of this Territory, unlike the Labor Government which, as we noted on the last appropriation division, went and signed up a big dollar deal for a big white elephant out at Bruce. It cost us millions and millions of dollars - $3.7m it cost out at Bruce.
Mr Wood: You went and opened it. If you do not approve, why did you go and open it?
MR COLLAERY: Yes, and I tell you what: When I opened it, I got booed, did I not? Senator Graham Richardson stood beside me when I was booed, and he got booed too. He wanted to know whether he was being booed because of me or I was being booed because of him. We were not sure. But then the next time Mr Hawke went there, as Mr Kaine knows, he got booed too. So, I do not know whether your money was even well spent on the league.
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Collaery, do you think we could get back to the debate?
MR COLLAERY: Yes. It was just a short allusion, Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, to lighten the evening. The legal services to government, of course, underpin all the activity of the departments. One of the important issues, of course, is criminal law reform. I enjoin Mr Connolly to
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