Page 1874 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 19 August 1992
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Matters of Public Importance
MR DE DOMENICO (5.55): Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in this adjournment debate. Let us look at some of the issues. Mr Wood pulled out a great big green book. I do not need green books.
Mr Wood: It would not hurt to educate yourself.
MR DE DOMENICO: The only reason I would use it, Mr Wood, is to stand on. Let us be for real. Suddenly, the day after this glorious Federal budget, every government backbencher coincidentally decided to put in an MPI. If you expect us and the people of Canberra to believe that that was a coincidence, you are wrong. That is point No. 1.
Members interjected.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Both sides of the house will come to order. Mr De Domenico has the floor.
MR DE DOMENICO: If the rules and conventions of this house are to use the numbers, so be it. From now on, the Liberal Party will put in six versions of the same MPI every day; and, on the basis of percentages, we will get up more than we will not get up on MPIs. If ever one Independent - Ms Szuty or Mr Moore - or anybody over there complains, forget it, because what is good for the goose is going to be good for the gander. That is what the issue is all about.
Of course we were ready to debate the MPI. But we are also concerned about the conventions of this place. Mr Moore, you can say that we are more conservative; we are, and we are proud of it. Wait until you see what the people of Victoria and then the people of Australia think about conservatism. Let us wait and see what the people of Canberra think about conservatism when you go up for election again. You had better enjoy yourself over the next 2 years, because you are kaput.
Mr Moore: You sound like Bernard Collaery did last year.
MR DE DOMENICO: No, I do not sound anything like Mr Collaery. The issue is all about conventions of this house. Let me also remind members opposite that the first party to walk out of this Assembly was the Labor Party.
Mr Wood: I am not complaining about that.
MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Wood says, "We are not debating about that". I am just saying to your Mr Lamont, who once again said something that was incorrect, that the first party that walked out of this Assembly was the Labor Party. Perhaps Mr Lamont will not accept that, but then he has been censured once by this Assembly for doing the wrong thing by this Assembly. So, Mr Lamont, just for your information, the first party to walk out of this Assembly was not the Liberal Party; it was the Labor Party. Let us get that quite clear.
The thing that we are standing up to talk about today, and why we walked out of this house, is that if we are to tear up convention, notwithstanding what that convention might be, Mr Wood - - -
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