Page 4320 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 1993
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MR BERRY: This Government is a consultative government. These are the people who bleat about consultation within the Government. Where was the consultation about their Bill to undermine the Government's budget?
Mrs Carnell: We talked about it for three weeks.
MR BERRY: That is different. You talked about it. You talk about a lot of things - talk, talk, talk, talk. You have been done over for that stupid act. You have been done over in a big way.
Mr Connolly: "Not fit to govern", I think was the view of the Canberra Times.
MR BERRY: Yes, not fit to govern. I love that. Not fit to govern, and rightly so.
Mr De Domenico: Do you believe everything you read in the Canberra Times?
MR BERRY: That one I am committed to. At the end of the day, the Opposition will hang their limp hands in the sky to support this Bill, though they will do it without the opportunity of being able to grab themselves a cheap headline. I am not sad about that. Those issues which might be confined to matters of grammar will be fixed up, I am sure, by the secretariat. I expect that anything of a grammatical nature that has to be addressed will be addressed by the Clerk.
Mrs Carnell: It was not, when I asked for it to be, in the briefing.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell, you have to get used to the fact that nobody snaps to attention these days when you ask for something to be done. You should get used to that.
Mrs Carnell: So now you are going to spend a huge amount of money fixing it up because you did not pay attention.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
Ms Follett: Madam Speaker, I know that you are trying to keep order, but I really do object to the constant interjections coming from the Liberal Party, particularly from the Leader of the Opposition. They are making it impossible to understand what the Minister is saying.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! The point is well made.
MR BERRY: We have a very clear situation where a piece of progressive legislation has been put before the chamber. It will be endorsed by the chamber, despite the protestations of the Opposition about matters various, none of which has any effect upon the legislation itself. They do have some effect on the ego of the Leader of the Opposition, and I guess that she will just have to get used to that because it is going to happen again and again.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to
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