Page 1661 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (4.05): I must admit that I am not certain whether this debate is worth 10 minutes of my time.
Mr Connolly: It is a lost cause.
MR KAINE: Yes, it is a lost cause. What we are hearing, Mr Deputy Speaker, is yet another rerun of the old Rosie and Wayne cartoon series. They simply repeat the same old script. In the future historians will be looking at the continuing series of Mutt and Jeff, of Laurel and Hardy, of Tom and Jerry, and of Rosie and Wayne. If you do not believe that it is a joke, just have a look at the press gallery. There is not one member of the media who has the slightest interest, because they have heard it all so many times before.
Mr Connolly: That is because they know that you are speaking.
MR KAINE: They have not been there for any of the debate, if you had bothered to watch, because they have heard it so often before. It is getting to be a big joke.
Mr Wood: Are you happy with Mr Humphries' administration?
MR KAINE: If you are not careful, Bill, it will not be the Rosie and Wayne show; it will be the Marx Brothers, and you will be one of them. Up until now you have done okay. I would suggest that you might quit while you are ahead, Mr Wood.
Mr Wood: Why do you not answer the question?
MR KAINE: I am going to answer the question. It is interesting that this debate on this censure motion was begun by a discredited former Minister. He is the man who, having got the job in 1989, scratched the back of his neck and said, "Gee whiz, I have a problem". In December 1989 he was still saying, "Gee whiz, I have a problem". His solution to the $7m overrun was to hope that it would go away.
As for his management problem, he could not make up his mind whether to turn his interim committee into a management committee or to fire its members. That is where he was at when we threw him out of office. He could not make a decision even about that. On the question of the whole hospital system, his solution, he thought, maybe was to spend $216m of 1989 dollars on refurbishing a hospital that we did not need and could not afford. That was the performance of the old, failed Minister over here; and he has the effrontery to move censure motions about Ministers. His credibility is absolutely zero. If it could be less than zero, that is where it would be.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .