Page 646 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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MR BERRY: I do not mind people taking a point or two about the way that committees work in the Assembly or the role that particular members play in those committees; but, when somebody plays no role - no role at all - and sets himself up to be judge and jury over other people who are at least participating in the process, that is just farcical. Mr Stevenson, as on many of his other issues, deserves to be exposed on this one. That is why the matter needs to be on the public record. How dare Mr Stevenson criticise others for the work that they are doing on committees. They are all working; he is not.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
GOVERNMENT'S PRIORITIES AND AUTUMN LEGISLATION PROGRAM
Ministerial Statement and Paper
Debate resumed from 16 February 1993, on motion by Ms Follett:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.38): Madam Speaker, the Government gave the citizens of the Territory a rare insight into the gaps in its program for 1993 when the Chief Minister tabled this statement in February. I say that it is a rare opportunity because this consultative Government rarely talks to anyone about anything and hardly ever takes any decisions, except those thrust upon it by circumstance or the activities of others. I suggest that this notion is reinforced by the Chief Minister's statement of 16 February.
In fact, I noted at the time that the Government's program for the Assembly was so short of business in the first six sitting days that it had to resort to debating Bills tabled only a matter of days before. This was after the Assembly had just finished and the Government had just had a two-month holiday. In light of that poor start to the year, the Government has delivered a paper program that is not only thin in prospect but also demonstrably inadequate right from the very first week of this year.
Mr Berry: Oh, Trevor, Trevor - - -
MR KAINE: Mr Berry just cannot stand it, can he? The Government continues to delude itself, Madam Speaker. Indeed, Mr Berry is part of that self-delusion. It deludes itself and it attempts to delude others that its agenda is both full and meaningful. In fact, it is empty of ideas; it is empty of reforms; it consists of programs that were already on the agenda last year. They just failed to get round to them last year.
Madam Speaker, we are asked to believe that the Government's legislative program is so heavy that there needs to be a distinction made between the priority Bills that we are going to deal with right now and the others which are being prepared more slowly. Yet, on past performance, the second priority Bills, however you define them, are just as likely to pop up tomorrow or perhaps might still be in preparation even a year from now. So there is no real distinction between the Bills that they claim are their priority ones and the others. It is just whichever Bills they like to pull out of the hat today or tomorrow or the ones they prefer to leave in the bottom of the barrel because they are a bit contentious.
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