Page 3339 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 18 September 1990
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Government to join the Australian Fisheries Council - a process that will cost something like $100,000, or range up to that amount. Why, one asks, would we join the Australian Fisheries Council whose objective is to promote the development of fishing in the oceans, particularly, around Australia?
That is a remarkable thing to happen. Are we going to see something like Kaine's carp as a table item around Australia? What on earth would we want to have to do with the Australian Fisheries Council? Why do we have to cough up money to join them? You might tell me some time. I see you are looking bemused.
Mr Duby: Naturally, we are part of the inland waterways.
Mr Kaine: Get some diseases in the fish population in our river system and you will know why.
MR WOOD: Well, it is primarily concerned, I can tell you, with ocean fisheries. That is what it is about. It has a very limited interest in the inland waterways. I would think that the amusement with which that proposal was greeted at the recent meeting in Hobart was well justified. I would think that we can save upwards of $100,000, the amount directed to fund that, and divert it to keeping schools open. That would be much more sensible.
Mr Kaine: Which school would you keep open for $100,000, Bill?
MR WOOD: Well, for $100,000 we could probably keep two or three schools open down the track, because that is about the extent of the savings that you might make after your one-off costs have gone. But let us move then, following that interjection, to the question of education.
Mr Duby: There is no such figure as $100,000 for the Fisheries Council. What are you talking about, Bill?
MR WOOD: That is what it is going to cost.
Mr Duby: It is not.
MR WOOD: Yes.
Mr Duby: Show me where.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR WOOD: It is not contained explicitly in your budget figures. I do not know where it will come out there.
Mr Collaery: Oh, it is fishy!
MR WOOD: I will get you the minutes of that Agricultural Council meeting and we will catch up with it. Let me not be diverted from the thrust we will make on education. The
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