Page 1970 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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MR COLLAERY (4.35): Mr Speaker, I wish to move an amendment to the motion my colleague Mr Humphries has just moved. I move:
Omit paragraph (4), substitute "(4) demands that the Government corrects its failure to provide such a program.".
I think the amendment speaks for itself. For my part and for the part of those, hopefully, supporting this amendment, the Government has been given one last stop off being condemned. The motion is there and the notice is served that action must take place to provide such a program and that this Assembly is quite unhappy with the present situation.
MR BERRY (Minister for Community Services and Health) (4.36): Mr Speaker, I rise to oppose the motion and the amendment. The proposition by Mr Humphries in relation to this matter is, of course, demonstrably an indictment of the Liberals' failure to deliver as a real opposition in this place, and I just go back to one MPI.
Now, here is a party that is criticising the Government for not allowing the Liberals to have a say in the formulation of policy. They deliver one private member's Bill in relation to move-on powers and it gets torn to pieces. I must say that the issue of consultation is one that the Liberals have never argued was their strong point. In the light of what happened to the private member's Bill, the type of legislation that they would be likely to bring forward would be torn to pieces if it were to be subjected to consultation, which would, of course, identify the conservative nature of many of the policies upon which the Liberals rely.
I think the argument that Mr Humphries put up in relation to this matter was short on detail and demonstrated, as I have said, the politics of the Liberal Party, but I think the most important issue is that it gave Government members the opportunity to again state the highlights of a Labor Government; that is, that it is a government based on democracy, it is open, it is accessible and it relies on consultation. Mr Stevenson might criticise it because we do not always agree with some of the right wing philosophies of Mr Stevenson. He tends to criticise us for not being consulted.
Mr Stevenson: I am talking about consultation, Wayne, as you well know.
MR BERRY: Well, you should not get agitated about your right wing policies. If you have got them and you have got the conviction of them, you should stick with them.
Mr Stevenson: Talk about the issue, Wayne: consultation, or lack of it.
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