Page 2605 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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at the time that I believed that this Minister was doing nothing more than abusing the time allocated for ministerial statements, and I stand by that comment.
The Minister indulged in a 25-minute tirade on issues which are more properly the prerogative of the Federal Parliament, and I think Mr Kaine made that point very well. I am particularly concerned that this does not set a precedent for this Assembly, and I call on the Government to confine ministerial statements to matters of relevance to the ACT. I have observed, as other members will have done, the tendency in recent days to discuss international affairs, for example, in adjournment debates. I suppose it is a trend we cannot avoid, but I hope that it will not go beyond that and that the valuable time of this Assembly will not be wasted on matters which do not affect the ACT to any great extent.
The statement made by the Minister, I think, could well be described - to use his description over the last few days - as cheap political point scoring. He knows all about that. He has accused the Opposition of cheap political point scoring, and I think it is a term which very well describes the points he was making in the ministerial statement of a few weeks ago.
Ministerial statements are an opportunity for the Government to make substantial announcements about government policy or initiatives, not to engage in debate on things which are more properly reserved for adjournment debates. Ministerial statements should not be used for political ends, whereby a Minister can deliver party political broadcasts, effectively debate is then adjourned, and the opposition parties have no right of reply until a later date.
I want to turn now to the text of the Minister's speech. I am not sure who wrote it for him, but whoever it was certainly had to scrape the barrel to come up with something of relevance. The Minister even had to resort to quoting newspaper reports to hold his statement together. I could have done the same thing, Mr Speaker. I could have referred, for example, to the Age which said, "Families offered generous breaks", or the Sydney Morning Herald which said, "Peacock has taken the initiative from the Government". It described the economic action plan as a list of initiatives that the ALP has to match. The Australian said that the Liberal focus was "on the families hardest hit by Labor". It went on to say that the plan was a boost for families, built on tax rebates.
Mr Speaker, I could go on, but I think these headlines I have quoted reveal the real reason for the Minister's statement. The real reason is that Labor is running scared across Australia because it knows it is on skid row. It knows it has nothing to offer the people of Australia. It offers no hope for families and no hope for business. There is no light at the end of Labor's tunnel.
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