Page 5222 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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MR WOOD: It must be good fun. I think there are a few other descriptions to apply to it - quite heated fun.
Mr Collaery: It makes for good government. We do not stifle debate.
MR WOOD: The tensions make for good government, says Mr Collaery. He stands up in that room and rubbishes the Minister for Education. He says that he cannot make his own decisions; that he is led by his bureaucrats. That is what they want to go away and forget. They want to put all that behind them. They cannot fix the problems; they just want to forget them. So it not surprising that they want to go away. But it is not acceptable that they should go away. It is totally unacceptable.
Let us look at this very serious situation they are now creating. They are going away for upwards of two months. Two Ministers are going to be away for eight weeks. It is unusual, I would think, in any parliament for one Minister to be away for so long. I am not aware of anywhere where that has happened. Even in the disreputable Queensland Parliament nothing like that ever occurred.
Mr Jensen: They never used to sit, Bill.
MR WOOD: They sat. Ministers simply do not go away for eight weeks. It is unheard of.
Mr Humphries: Who is going away for eight weeks?
MR WOOD: How long are you going away for?
Mr Connolly: Seven weeks.
Mr Humphries: I am going away for six.
MR WOOD: Six weeks and seven weeks. It is only six weeks and seven weeks, they say. So that is all right; seven weeks and six weeks is great. They think that is quite justifiable.
Mr Kaine: Like Gareth, you are overstating the case just by a margin. This is this marginalisation that Michael was telling me about.
MR WOOD: I was quite keen to get your interjections on that. It is rare for Ministers to take such long holidays. I do not know. Perhaps when they answer this they can give some precedents of how long Ministers in the Federal Parliament or State parliaments take on holidays. I would doubt that it is anything like six and seven weeks respectively. It is also rare for Ministers to be so contemptuous of parliament, to be so uninterested in their own portfolios as to absent themselves for such an extended period. I would have thought that a Minister would be keen on what he is doing and would want to attack the job. It says a lot about their attitudes. These are two Liberals,
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