Page 1952 - Week 07 - Thursday, 31 May 1990
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would then automatically go to the Opposition. He has just described his system as going to one side of the house and then the other side of the house. I think that that is the point of the problem here.
Clearly, today when the Chief Minister is putting forward a major statement it is quite appropriate that he be granted leave in the normal fashion and I think that should have happened. Let me say this about question time as an impartial judge: I consider the questions to be answered much more thoroughly and to the point under this Government, particularly with Mr Humphries. Of all days, today he did take a question of mine on notice but I think it is perhaps only the second time that this has happened. I think that this happened regularly with the Labor Government, whereas this particular Government has attempted to answer the questions fully and offer somebody else a chance to have a say.
MR STEFANIAK (3.27): I was going to rise on this one because Mr Berry has made this point about not letting the Chief Minister make a ministerial statement which is somewhat unprecedented. It is normal that Ministers are able to make ministerial statements at this point in time. Mr Berry has had a great whinge about the Opposition not being given enough time for questions. They had 40 minutes today. I can recall on one instance the Chief Minister allowing close to an hour. We have regularly gone past 3 o'clock.
Mr Berry, amongst the members of the Opposition, has been particularly vocal in the last three or four months about saying that this Government has got no business, yet I note with interest that a lot of the time of this Assembly since February has been taken up by spurious points of order, spurious suspensions of standing orders and time wasting tactics by this Opposition when we could have got on with business. We have a fair bit of business here today. I see eight Bills which are going to be introduced today which are on the notice paper. We have order of the day No. 1 in relation to the National Aquarium project and two ministerial statements. Let us get on with it.
MR COLLAERY (Deputy Chief Minister) (3.28): I wish to add a couple of points to this debate. Firstly, the Opposition's tactics today are exactly the same as those they have employed at all of the school meetings - destructive, non-constructive and delaying. Secondly, Mr Speaker - - -
Mrs Grassby: You were not there. How would you know?
MR COLLAERY: You would be surprised which ones I have been to. Secondly, Mr Speaker, there is a report to be delivered by the Chief Minister of extreme importance to the public and I trust Mr Berry appreciates that he has kept the media waiting half an hour unnecessarily.
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