Page 3012 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Liberal Party members, it is planned that two will be Ministers - 40 per cent, that is, if the present system holds - and that would be the two we have now. Out of the three members of the Residents Rally, two - 66 per cent - would be Ministers. That is right. And there would be one Minister out of two - 50 per cent - from what was the No Self Government Party; I am not sure what the title is now legally - Independents or whatever. So the Residents Rally would find itself in a very strong position should this go ahead. It would have 66 per cent of its members in Cabinet positions. That is very interesting. I wonder what the Liberal Party, with 40 per cent of its members in such an Executive position, would say about that. Will it allow this to happen? Or is this the reason for the proposed sixth ministry? Instead of the Liberals having two out of five, they may then have three out of five, and we would have Mr Stefaniak, perhaps, gracing a very large front bench here. That would give the Liberals 60 per cent.
I wonder whether your parties argue about the proportional representation. I wonder how you are going to work it out. Of course, that is a very cynical way to do things. It is an approach that looks purely at numbers, but that is how you got there in the first place - and I do not gripe about that because this is a place where numbers do count. No doubt they count as significantly in the joint party room.
I want to go back to the main thrust of the debate: do we need a fifth ministry? I saw the Follett Government operating from close quarters. I was the one person in the Labor Party who was not in an Executive position.
Mr Humphries: Shame, shame.
MR WOOD: No, I was very happy with my position, Mr Humphries. I saw them, as you say, working very hard and very effectively. There is no question about that. It is not a part-time job and I do not question that members on the other side of the house also have to work hard. But the work is accomplished.
There is a wide scope of activity to be encompassed; but it still is a community of just less than 300,000 people, so it is not the largest electorate in the world to which we have to attend. It is quite manageable. There is no problem about that, and, while each Minister - Mr Humphries, for example - covers a number of portfolios that in the States would have two or three Ministers, the scope of it is nowhere near as great as in the States.
Mr Humphries: You reckon?
MR WOOD: The scope of it is not; you cannot - - -
Mr Collaery: Bill, you have not served. You do not know.
MR WOOD: I have been very close to it. Perhaps some people are more capable of handling these things than
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .