Page 1688 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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able to act during a vacancy in the office of Chief Minister, or when the Chief Minister is quite explicitly absent from duty, or from Australia. That suggests, of course, that the Act intended to make provision only for an absence by a Chief Minister. So it is unclear as to what the draftsman intended. In that circumstance, bringing forward this Bill is, I remind Mr Berry - through you, Mr Speaker - an important small exercise in law making.
It is anticipated, of course - and I have no doubt that the Chief Minister will say this - that this is to facilitate the processes of executive government when, as often happens in this federal nation, two Ministers are absent at the same time. What these Opposition members never realised during the short interregnum when they held the chalice is that there are national responsibilities. There is a need, as a Minister in any government in this country, to meet with other Ministers and divide funds, to attend Loan Council meetings, to meet with other States' Attorneys, and to meet with welfare Ministers to divide child welfare places and funding, and on all the other issues.
We constantly hear from this immature group of politicians about our junkets, when I and my other colleagues are at meetings with their Federal friends - their Federal Labor Ministers. I rarely, if ever, leave this Territory without a Federal Labor Minister being with me at the meeting. Mr Berry, of course, once again is telling those people over on the hill that they go on junkets, because this group opposite us does not understand how government works.
Mrs Grassby: We understand all right. We just do not waste money.
MR COLLAERY: I would hate to be saying that from No. 13. It would bring me a bit of bad luck, I would think. Mr Berry should think about withdrawing the suggestion that travel - which is sometimes arduous, inconvenient and a strain on our families - is a junket. I think that is a churlish comment, particularly as public servants often accompany us, often to their inconvenience. The suggestion that they are junket trips shows the sort of Opposition we have in this Territory.
Finally, when I am away at those functions, inevitably the scurrilous little press release comes out saying, "Mr Collaery is absent again on a junket", and your Labor friends throughout this country groan when I show them those squalid little press releases that emanate from that funny little sunstruck section of this building on the first floor.
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