Page 1858 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
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Electoral Commission. Play the game that way and you will get no public hangings, you will get no public criticism and you will get no public disagreement. But play the game your way, and continue to play it that way, and of course you will - and you will invite it.
Do not call on American experience. The American system is not our system. You can draw all the analogies you like, but it cannot and it will not be our system. Let us develop our own system. That is what we are on about. Let us develop a system and all agree to the rules. It will not matter whether we are in government, which we will be, or whether you are in government, which you will not be for much longer. We will all be players in the game and the community will be better off.
Mr Lamont: Do you know something that Mr Moore and Ms Szuty do not know, Mr Kaine?
MR KAINE: Mr Moore and Ms Szuty will be let in on it, too, as they were with the Electoral Commission, Mr Lamont. They were consulted on the appointments, just as we were. They know what is going on, and we will make sure that they do, even if you do not want them to know.
MR STEVENSON (11.06): Mr Connolly says that the system proposed in these amendments has made the US Government unworkable. I had to look at the amendments again. I thought that the amendments being referred to could not be the amendments that I had read a little while ago. I looked at them again and I saw that they refer to the Assembly being able to disallow an instrument of appointment. Mr Connolly said that that is the sort of thing that has made the US Government unworkable. I would suggest that it is perhaps one or two other things - to put it mildly. Nevertheless, Mr Connolly, if we are to take him at his word, said that that was the reason. He railed against the proposal, but what did he then say? He poured heaps of invective on it and then said, "In opposition we would use the same tactic". What does that say about the Minister? What does that say about the character of Mr Connolly? It does not say much at all.
Mr Connolly: Dennis, we know that you do not like me. You constantly move censure motions against me. Just get to the next point.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Connolly says that I do not like him. That is not correct. I do not mind him. It is his actions that stink. I do not take people personally. I look at the individual and I make a decision - - -
Mr Berry: Only people outside of here that you can sledge with parliamentary privilege backing you up.
Mrs Grassby: Just remember, Dennis, that a fox always smells his own smell first.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stevenson, please continue.
MR STEVENSON: Heavens above! The Labor Party are very poor losers. If you had watched their behaviour over the last few minutes you would have seen that Mr Connolly was very angry. He is slumped in his chair and he has been drumming on a sheet of paper, most concerned. You ask yourself, "Well, what is it? Is it the end of their rule, the divine right of the kings to rule? What is it that he is so concerned about? What has decimated them?
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