Page 4949 - Week 17 - Tuesday, 11 December 1990
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Government Whip; and the other, Mr Duby, off on ministerial business.
Mr Wood: Yes, fair enough. You still had your majority.
MR STEFANIAK: We certainly did still have the majority. There were other members of the Government who had other commitments; no doubt other members of the Opposition did too. Let us look at what happens in the big house.
Mr Wood: That is right, and I did not go.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Wood, please!
Mr Wood: You would not dare name me.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Wood!
Mr Wood: You would not dare name me after what happened on Thursday.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Wood, please desist. Continue, Mr Stefaniak.
MR STEFANIAK: Let us look at what happens in other parliaments. This comes under the term "conduct". Members in the House of Representatives and in the Senate are quite often not on the floor of the house. They have other business to attend to. They are on the floor of the house when they have to be there. Business proceeds in an orderly way according to tradition and also according to further practice of the house which has been going a lot longer than this Assembly. I will come up with one little example, Mr Speaker. On Tuesday, a very busy Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, spent three hours at the Prime Minister's XI cricket game. So he should; it is his cricket match, he helps pick the team; that is a tradition. He went back to the house on occasions when he absolutely had to, but he was there going about other business whilst the House of Representatives was sitting. Is the Opposition saying that everyone should be here and never leave to attend to other essential business out there in the community?
Mrs Grassby: Mr Stefaniak, you have got it all wrong. He did not clear the whole house out like Mr Collaery did.
MR STEFANIAK: I do not think I have, Mrs Grassby. I think you people have got it all wrong. What we saw happen on 29 November - and that is disregarding the rightfulness or not of whatever Mr Collaery did or did not do - the fact of the matter is that those Government members remained in the building. Towards the end of the adjournment debate - and I think the persons mentioned were absent for only about five minutes - the Opposition and the two independent members tried to pull a nice little stunt and bring on private members' business. I think that in itself does not help to maintain the dignity of the Assembly.
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