Page 87 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 1991
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Mr Humphries referred to Western Australia and Queensland as examples of rorted electoral systems. It is a matter of pride to the Labor Party that that is being rectified in Queensland, and it is to the undying shame of the Liberal Party that you continue to cling to the outrageously undemocratic system of election in the upper house of Western Australia. When members of the Liberal Party can claim piously to be in favour of democratic electoral reform while their colleagues in Western Australia cling to that bastion of squattocracy in 1991, the doings of the Labor Party in the 1950s are quite irrelevant. So, that obvious rejoinder aside, we, of course, endorse the idea that electoral systems should be properly entrenched.
The point that really provoked me to rise was the extraordinary reaction from Mr Collaery to the Leader of the Opposition's statement that the attempt to create two more ministries was an exercise in jobs for the boys. And did he jump! He was outraged. Methinks he doth protest too much. It is to the undying shame of the ACT that it has the only government in Australia that does not have a woman on the front bench; that does not have a female Minister. One would have to go back some years to find another government at State or Territory level that did not have a female Minister. I refer to governments not only in Australia. I would challenge this upholder of women's rights, this person who was outraged at the suggestion of jobs for the boys and who protested about sexist language, to point to a ministry anywhere in the Western world - or indeed the Eastern world - which considers it not fit for a female to hold a ministerial position.
No democratic government in the Western world would contemplate an all-male front bench. This could hardly be said to be a front bench that has asserted itself because of its talents, so that is not the reason. It is an outrage and a shame to the ACT that we have the only government in Australia without a woman Minister, and all the Attorney-General can do is take exception to the comments of the Leader of the Opposition that this is a plot for jobs for the boys. Of course, the case for that is well documented because the comments that we have heard from persons opposite all speculate about one or other of "the boys" assuming that additional ministry.
I noticed that Dr Kinloch was quick to his feet to protest and uphold his honour by saying, "When we in the Residents Rally deposed the Labor Government it was never a consideration that there would be an additional Residents Rally Minister". That is not so because the accord document, the basis of this ramshackle Government, refers to the efforts that will be made to create additional ministries for the Residents Rally. It is in your own document. You are condemned by your own accord document. The basis of your very existence makes that point. So it is simply not credible for Dr Kinloch to stand up here and say that additional Ministers for the Rally was never a motivation for the formation of the Ministry. Not only is
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