Page 3002 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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Mr Jensen: I thought he was in your faction.
MRS GRASSBY: Listen, what got me, Daffy, was that you were always wanting stuff moved out.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I would ask you to withdraw that.
MRS GRASSBY: Yes, I am sorry. I mean Mr Jensen. I withdraw that. He was always wanting money spent in Tuggeranong. Now he wants to be a Minister, with more money spent. It is the spoils of the job that he is after. Is that what it is? Is he not happy to sit here and do the job as it should be done for the people of Canberra? How do the pensioners in Canberra feel, trying to live on very little money with the cost of everything going up? What about the people who are trying to pay off houses? You want another two Ministers. Why do you not all take ministerships?
Mr Collaery: Well, why don't you melt down your earrings?
MRS GRASSBY: I worked very hard to get these, outside in a job. I did not ask for the people to pay for them. You are asking for the people of Canberra to give you more money for two more Ministers. Snouts in the trough - that is what it is all about; it is nothing else. I am afraid that there is no way that I, as a member of the Labor Party, could support this. Of course you can all earn more money outside. Well, go out and earn it. Do not ask for it here.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (4.01): Mr Speaker, from the outset I would like to get this debate back on track. One of the first things that I want to clarify in this debate is that it has been pointed out by a number of speakers on the other side that this motion does not have the support of the Chief Minister. I want to refute that because the Chief Minister has said that the whole issue was a matter of an agreement that was made, when this Government was formed, that we shall seek to raise the number of members of the ministry because of the well known fact that, given the four Ministers that we had previously, and assuming that they are reasonably capable of work, they seemed to be snowed under, and we did not want the same thing to happen on this side of the house.
I also want to refute any argument or suggestion that this is being led and pushed by the Deputy Chief Minister, that somehow he is pulling the strings and saying who shall be appointed to which position and who shall not. In his statement yesterday he said:
... let me make it very clear that the prerogative for the appointment of Ministers and for the nature and style of those appointments lies with ... the Chief Minister.
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