Page 1085 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Kaine: If you cannot program it, do not put the load on us.
MR BERRY: The Liberals are as well resourced as anybody in this Assembly. They ought not complain.
Mr Kaine: Except you.
Mr Humphries: You have 20,000 public servants behind you.
MR BERRY: You are not the Government and you have to get used to that, I am afraid. You are well resourced compared to the other members; so how can you complain? How can you complain that you cannot deal with the business? A little while ago you were complaining that you could not find enough work for yourself; now you complain that you have too much. Make up your mind. How are we going to please you? I am afraid that we cannot.
In relation to Mr Stevenson, he is well resourced and is underoccupied. The Independents, dare I say it, are well resourced, in my view. Other people have a different view. In my view, they are well resourced. They have chosen to part and become Independents in their own right. There is a penalty for that - they cannot share the workload. I guess they have to wear some of the responsibility because that is their choice. Everybody around this place has made their choice.
It strikes me as a silly argument, dare I say it, that people would disagree now with a good raft of responsible legislation coming before the Assembly. Why are they complaining about having to deal with it?
Mr Humphries: Because it is too soon. We have not had time to look at it properly.
MR BERRY: This is a regurgitation of the same old tired theme that Mr Stevenson raised in November last year. He just dusted off the old MPI. On that day I was able to expose flaws in Mr Stevenson's argument. You only have to look at the Hansard to see what occurred. If you refer to pages 5079 and 5080 for a brilliant speech I made on that day, you will find all of the information.
Given the time constraints for the Government implicit in an MPI raised on a Tuesday, I have not been able to do the same detailed assessment of the issue; but I will just go through some of the figures. A sample perusal of the Bills list shows that, of the 23 government Bills introduced into the Assembly this year, there was a period of over a month between the introduction and passage of 20 of them. Of the remaining three, only one was introduced and passed in the same week, and that was the Statute Law Revision Bill.
Mr Humphries: That is one too many, Wayne.
MR BERRY: No, no, no; you said that that was not enough work. Now we are giving you some more work and you are still complaining. When are you going to give up? Heavens above! This is just the Liberals grizzling about quality legislation coming before the Assembly and the Labor Party doing well.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .