Page 1690 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (8.29), in reply: Mr Speaker, I must say that I welcome the support from the Opposition on this issue, I think. It amazes me that the members of the Opposition can, on the one hand, support what seems to me to be a sensible proposal from the Government and, on the other hand, carry on their innuendo and attack on members of the Government. One of these days they may be again in government, and when they find themselves in that situation they are going to find, just as we have found, that there is travel that Ministers must necessarily do. I agree with Mr Collaery. When I next go to the Premiers Conference or the Planning Ministers Conference or the Minerals and Energy Conference, I am going to take a copy of your press releases and give them to the Prime Minister, Mr Kerin and other Federal Ministers, and let them see how petty-minded you are on this issue.
There has been a lot of speculation about why members of the Opposition did not travel when they were in government. It has been suggested that maybe there was an airlines strike and they did not have much opportunity. It has even been suggested by them that they were conserving public money. But we on this side of the house know why they did not travel. The simple fact is that none of them dared leave town because they would not know what happened while they were away. That was the reason they did not travel. But if and when they ever get back into government they will find that there are commitments that Ministers in a government are expected to honour, and their contemporaries in the State governments and in the Northern Territory and Federal governments will regard them with some disdain if they do not appear at ministerial council meetings which go on around the country and which raise issues of national concern as well as of concern at the State and Territorial level.
All this talk about junkets makes good copy, and I have no doubt that they will take this extract out of the Hansard and send it to all their mates so that everybody can see what great speeches they made and how they really attacked the Government on this issue. But it really is nothing but rhetoric, and Mr Connolly and others will know, if they ever get back into government, how important it is to represent the people of this Territory in these ministerial council meetings.
Of course, the practical reality is that next year, when there is another Alliance government sitting here after the election next February, we will have five Ministers and not four, and we will probably be asking the Opposition to amend this to provide that three Ministers can form an Executive, because I cannot see the day when more than two Ministers would ever be absent at once. It is a reasonable provision that we make to ensure that the decisions of the Executive are legal. That is what this is about.
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