Page 3196 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 11 September 1991
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attend a ministerial meeting with Ros Kelly and other Australian Ministers on issues revolving around drugs in sport and ministerial matters affecting a number of issues of sensitivity that involve the Australia-New Zealand region.
I thereafter had meetings with Dame Sylvia Cartwright and I had lunch with her. She is the chief judge of the new single-tier court in New Zealand, a court structure that we were actively considering and pursuing in the Territory for a whole lot of administrative reasons - a process the Labor Government has put aside. I then had meetings with Dr Michael Cullen, the Social Welfare Minister at the time, on their adoption policy. As members will recall, we had a very important adoption debate in government and in the Territory, and they have some reforms under way.
Similarly, I met the Minister for Youth Affairs on a new youth training and drug combating strategy. The former Labour Government introduced some very innovative reforms in their Maori and other problem areas. I then met with Australian Federal Police representatives; that was a courtesy call in Wellington. I met also with Mr Prebble, the Police Minister, and we talked about community policing issues and, tragically, gun controls, because they had a massacre shortly thereafter.
I met with Minister Hunt, the Minister for Housing, on what they had done after the Commonwealth Games, when they transferred all of the transportable homes built for athletes at the Commonwealth Games to their housing trust. I was looking at that as an initiative in relation to a proposal Mr Stefaniak was pressing on me at the time, and still continues to press - that we host the Commonwealth Games in 2002.
I also met with the Minister for Justice, Mr Jeffries, on issues dealing with, I am happy to say, an exchange of judicial officers. I do not want to put it any higher because I do not believe that it is a matter for discussion at this stage. I discussed, according to my diary notes here, a number of issues, including human rights advocacy. At the time, Mr Humphries was pursuing in government his smoking-tobacco issues and, as Mr Humphries well knows, the New Zealand Government at that very time were trying to put through an Act on smoke-free environments. I did not waste my time in that country.
Mr Berry: Was there a football game? Did you go to a football game?
MR COLLAERY: I did go. I was with the Raiders team for their final and I was with the Australian rugby league team for their final. It all happened on the same weekend. I was there with the Hilary Commission - and I am proud to have gone there. It ill behoves a Labor Minister to tackle any Minister for being seen at a football game.
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