Page 560 - Week 02 - Thursday, 21 February 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
position. Labor members somehow feel that they have a God given right to be chairs of committees whilst they are in opposition.
Mr Connolly: We are happy for other people to chair; not an Executive Deputy.
MR DUBY: In that case, perhaps you can become the Labor Party nominee on planning matters. Who knows? It is exactly the same situation, as Mr Jensen has said. The simple fact is that this is part of the grand strategy put up by the Labor Party to deliberately denigrate the work of the committee system, which it somehow thinks rubs off on to the work of this Government, and that, Mr Speaker, is clearly not the case.
In its refusal to participate in the workings of the committee system the Labor Party is denigrating the Assembly and denigrating this Government and, I dare say, as we all know, denigrating itself. The fact is that you should earn your pay. You are being paid money to be members of this Assembly, and you should earn your pay, as are the members of this Government who are both in the Executive and out of it, as you well know.
Mr Kaine: If they do not want to be on the committee, they should not get themselves elected to it in the first place.
MR DUBY: Precisely, Mr Chief Minister. The Chief Minister said earlier in the day that you should put your money where your mouth is. My suggestion to you is that you should put your mouth where your money is. You should be on these committees and have input into what is going on. You should earn your pay. But, it seems to me, as we see from the pitiful examples of questions without notice that we get in this Assembly, that most members of that Labor Opposition could not work in an iron lung, Mr Speaker. That is the basic problem. They are lazy. They are a lazy Opposition.
Mr Moore: That is just crap. Sit down and make compromises. Committees are about compromises, and you are ruining this committee because you will not compromise.
MR DUBY: Dare I say, Mr Moore, that, if the members of the Opposition - and I call the Labor Party the Opposition - put in half the work that you do as a backbencher, this Assembly would be a much better place. But the fact is, of course, that they do not. They are too busy bickering amongst themselves, passing snide little laughs and chuckles amongst themselves during debate, to take up points. Put up or shut up. If you do not like it, get out.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .