Page 89 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 1991
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be St Bernard. But, again, we would be spending the taxpayers' money and having snouts in the trough instead of getting on with running Canberra.
So I do not really support this idea, but our party does support the proposition that we have the right to make the decisions in this area and that that should not be given to somebody else. I also support the fact that the Chief Minister has got that right from the Prime Minister, and I think that is very important. Either we are an Assembly, or a parliament, or we are not. I think we should have that right and I am glad to see that that has been given to the Chief Minister. But, as for making Mr Jensen a Minister, I do not know. I think Mr Jensen is surely a squirrel's idea of Utopia.
MR JENSEN (9.51), in reply: Mr Speaker, I will treat that sort of nonsense with the contempt that it deserves, and I am sure that those people within the house tonight will do the same.
Before I go on to my substantive remarks in closing this debate, I just would like to pick up Mr Connolly, who once again appears to have made a statement without doing his homework. He indicated that there is no other government in Australia that does not have a woman on the front bench. Unfortunately, Mr Connolly got it wrong again. His L plates are showing again because, in fact, the Northern Territory does not have a woman on the front bench.
Mr Connolly: It is another conservative government, of course.
MR JENSEN: I see. Because it is not a Labor government it is appropriate for it not to have a woman on the front bench! How incredible. Mr Connolly, once again your L plates are showing.
In completing the debate on this report I will refer in my opening remarks to a comment made by Mr Wood, a fellow committee member, about the recommendation by the committee that a further attempt should be made to make the d'Hondt electoral system work, following a series of improvements. On 26 April 1990, some 10 months ago as Ms Follett has indicated, Mr Wood said - and I quote from page 1302 of the Hansard of that date:
I do not want to say, as my two colleagues did, that d'Hondt provides the best system. I will leave that for the community to decide.
Unfortunately, Mr Wood, it seems that the community will not have a say. The message being put out by the Federal Minister responsible for this area is that the Federal Parliament, without any reference to the community, will seek to inflict what amounts to a first past the post electoral system, with no provision for preferences
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