Page 1663 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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That is where the censure motion ought to be directed. There ought to be a censure motion about the total inability of this Labor Opposition to put up one constructive idea, to make one constructive contribution to any debate on any subject on the floor of this house. You make no constructive contribution whatsoever. Do not let me hear any more talk about this censure motion. Look to yourselves. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones. As far as I am concerned, that is all your motion deserves. Of course, it will be totally rejected.
MR CONNOLLY (4.12): Mr Deputy Speaker, the Chief Minister did not take 10 minutes to defend his Minister and I will not take the full 10 minutes to continue the Opposition attack. His was a pathetic defence of a Minister, a pathetic defence of a government, and a total failure to address the substantial points raised by Mr Berry in the censure motion. I think the truth of the matter came out when Mr Kaine gleefully said, "Well, do not expect him to resign; you will not get any resignations out of this Government". We have probably accepted that. We have seen case after case where resignations would be justified in any other system, but they still cling to power.
Mr Wood referred to Mr Humphries no longer honouring the system of the buck stops here. The front bench of this Government are more concerned with where the bucks stop than with where the buck stops, and questions of ministerial responsibility and propriety are just not observed. Mr Deputy Speaker, the issue of ministerial responsibility is central to this debate and we have seen today a new development on that doctrine. I asked the Chief Minister during question time what he understood the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in the Westminster system to mean. He declined to answer that.
We now have the Humphries doctrine of ministerial responsibility, which is that a Minister is responsible and accountable for administrative areas in his department provided the Opposition spokesperson first drew his attention to them. Mr Humphries, the Minister, seems to suggest in his defence that the reason why it is okay for him not to know what was going on in his department, the reason why it is okay for a Minister in charge of a major department of this Territory to not be aware of administrative and financial mayhem within that area, is that the Opposition did not draw his attention to the matter.
Well, the Opposition would gladly take over the administration of this Territory and draw Mr Humphries' attention to his errors. Unfortunately, we on the Opposition benches do not have access to the information. We do not have access to the public servants. We cannot be expected, obviously, to be aware of this detail, but the Minister can. The Minister should be in day-to-day control and command of the finances of his department. The
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