Page 1978 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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MRS GRASSBY: That is not absolute nonsense. The point is the opposition members are not here but then they expect us to do everything else for them, including their work.
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; I wonder whether we could ask the good Minister just to stick to the truth. We do not need these fabrications.
MR SPEAKER: Please proceed, Minister.
MRS GRASSBY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am sticking to the truth. The point is that I am now going to keep a diary of whether your cars are in when I come in, so you had better watch it. It will be nice because the next time I stand up and speak I will be able to read it out. I will be able to read out when you are here.
Mr Moore: Would you note my bicycle, too, please, Minister?
MRS GRASSBY: Yes, I will note your bicycle, definitely. Mr Collaery says there are no lawyers on this side of the house but, after having seen the way the opposition goes on, thank God there are not. After all the jokes I know about the lawyers - and if Mr Collaery does not know them he can see me afterwards and I can tell him - I can tell you now that it is not a profession to which I would want to say I belong.
Mr Humphries: Tell us now.
MRS GRASSBY: No, Mr Humphries, I would not want to hurt your profession. If I told you the jokes it would upset your profession. Mr Speaker, I find it incredible that an opposition sits there. I have spent day after day sitting here doing drawings because we cannot get on with the work that we have. I am going to end up a wonderful artist before this is over. I practise while I am sitting here, listening to absolute rubbish. We have Bills there, yet they are saying, "But you do not tell us what is happening". On the previous Monday they said to us when we had to go and sit around the table, "This is wonderful. Can we do this every week?". So we do it again, and then we are criticised for that.
Honest to goodness, it would not matter what you did for them; they would still have a complaint. As I said, they are the greatest lot of whingers I have met in all my life. They tell you they do not know what is going on. They are like the birdie on the biscuit tin - they are on it, not in it. That is their trouble. They ought to spend a bit more time in the biscuit tin and know what the heck is going on, instead of getting up here all the time and whingeing about the fact that we do not tell them what we are doing, when we are giving briefing after briefing. We sit there at the end of the table and think, "My God, not only have they not read the Bills; they have not even looked at them".
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