Page 1699 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
If the Opposition suggests that Mr Duby should resign because his offence relates to his area of ministerial responsibility, then again there is a serious flaw in their argument. What essentially they are saying is that this kind of offence would be acceptable from anyone else in the Assembly except Mr Duby. Again, with respect, Mr Speaker, it is ridiculous. It does not hold up, and the great practising lawyer over there knows that it does not hold up.
Let me examine further, Mr Speaker, the issue of the appalling double standards of the Opposition and, quite frankly, the Canberra Times on this issue. Several weeks ago the Commonwealth Minister for Justice made a statement which had the effect of aborting a criminal trial. He was the Minister for Justice and this was a serious personal error. I do not recall any loud calls or even suggestions from any of you on that side of the house, or from the Canberra Times, that the Minister for Justice should stand down. Where were your great moralistic standards then? They did not exist because that was not important.
Only last week a Federal Government backbencher of your political persuasion was convicted of an offence involving serious personal impropriety. Once again, there has been no call for his resignation from the house.
Ms Follett: He is not a Minister.
MR KAINE: He is a member. You want to draw distinctions. There has been no call for his resignation, and certainly not from you lot over there; your double standards are starting to show. The Federal Minister who is responsible for taxation matters failed to lodge a tax return. According to the Opposition's definition of ministerial responsibility, the Treasurer should have resigned. The Opposition and the press cannot have it both ways, and I challenge them to state their position on all of the cases that I have just referred to - and particularly the budding genius lawyer, Mr Connolly.
I suggest to Mr Connolly and his colleagues that the hardheads who run the Federal Government over the lake there would be aghast at his redefinition of why Ministers should resign. His new definition of ministerial responsibility is out of whack with what his colleagues over the lake would agree with. I suspect that they would counsel him - and the verbose Mr Berry - that his inexperience is making a rod for his own back. If by some miracle Mr Connolly ever attains ministerial office, I would suggest that it is inevitable that circumstances will arise which will provide him with an opportunity to repent at leisure his extravagant claims on this matter last week.
What this is all about is that Mr Connolly has belatedly identified himself with an opportunity by which he can make a name for himself. I advise him to pause and reflect on
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .