Page 2436 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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Can I also put Mr Connolly, the Minister, right on the question of dorothy dixers themselves. He says that he regrets the practice of the former Alliance Government of using dorothy dixers. Can I remind him - perhaps he does not know - that on the very first day this Assembly took questions of the Government, which was of course in May or June 1989, Mr Wood, who was then the sole backbencher of the Government, indeed of the whole Assembly, rose and asked Government Ministers questions that would, I think, constitute dorothy dixers.
Mr Wood: Come off it. I was extraordinarily careful about my choice of questions, I can tell you. There were a few, in eight months. There were very few - not a persistent, day after day thing.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Minister Wood, please!
MR HUMPHRIES: Apparently, Mr Speaker, Mr Wood is a man more sinned against than sinning. Well, the fact of life is that he sinned first. He did ask questions of his own party Ministers. That was a practice initiated by the Labor Party in government. The record ought to show that the Alliance Government merely continued this practice of the previous Follett Labor Government. Whether that should continue in the future I could not say. Perhaps it ought to discontinue. I am quite happy to accept this new precedent being set by this Government. If it removes the earlier practice, I am very pleased about that, and I would not be disposed to argue about it.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, I seek leave of this house to make a short statement in reply to Mr Connolly's statement.
Leave granted.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, the Bropho decision was delivered in Canberra on 20 June 1990 and all of what Mr Connolly says is correct, but my clear recollection is that those decisions were taken by the Law Office and were indicated by me as Attorney-General. I do not want to play any games, but I clearly remember giving and indicating all those directions to the Law Office.
What is more interesting, of course, is that this is a chance to recognise in this Assembly the very strong and progressive bench of the High Court. It was a strong court - Mason, Chief Justice, and Justices Brennan, Deane, Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron and McHugh. As the lawyers will appreciate, it was one of those practically rare joint decisions of that august tribunal. I think Mr Justice Brennan added some comments of his own. The decision has been mentioned by several of us in the past in this chamber, Mr Connolly included. It was in relation to legislation that I believe the then Minister, Mr Duby, was bringing in. It turned upon whether public servants could be liable for dumping clinical waste at the dump, or words to that effect.
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