Page 4358 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 30 November 1994
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Mrs Carnell: And confined to the subject matter.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! I am quite well aware of what the standing order requires.
Mr Kaine: But you are not going to invoke it.
MADAM SPEAKER: This is my favourite standing order. As I understand where Mr Wood is going - and I am listening intently - he is linking that inquiry to why that officer was at that meeting. That is the point that I am listening for. "Concise", in my book, means relevance in coming to a point, and I believe that he is coming to it. Please proceed, Mr Wood.
Mr Kaine: "When?" is the question.
MR WOOD: Do not get so agitated. This survey was carried out in about 1988. They set up sonic barriers - posts that emitted sound. The situation was different from what you had the other day. They had lots of kangaroos around. They tried to see whether the kangaroos would be deterred by this sonic barrier. They took no notice. They would not even scratch themselves on it. So, all the senators, who had got up at about 4.00 am to go and witness this at about 5.30 am, were horribly disappointed and gave a negative report on the proposal. I understand that it was the same proposal that Mr Stefaniak was pushing the other day.
The proponents have come back with an enhancement - a higher-technology system - by which you have to get out your shotguns and your stockwhips and make a lot of noise and startle the animals to get them moving. When they get a bit agitated, the sonic barrier has an effect. That is the technical improvement that this system now has. That is what Mr Stefaniak - this wonderful shadow Minister for the Environment - was supporting. The Canberra Times quite correctly headed the article for this loving, caring shadow Minister for the Environment "Migraines for Kangaroos". What an accurate heading that was!
MR STEFANIAK: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. I also refer the Minister to today's Canberra Times, in which the president of the Conservation Council of the South-East Region and Canberra was reported as saying, "Mr Wood has lost sight of the real issue". She went on to say that he had phoned a bureaucrat at home and ordered him into the bush to attend an Opposition press conference. She reminded the Minister that the role of bureaucrats is to give independent advice, not to be dispatched to spy on either the Opposition or the community. I ask the Minister: Is it Government policy to send public servants, off duty or otherwise, to press conferences such as these, rather than members of your own staff, which would have been more appropriate?
MR WOOD: You have given me a few beaut questions today, have you not? Your caring for the kangaroos is interesting. Madam Speaker, if we had another five minutes, one of my officers could send down Mr Stefaniak's beat-up media statement that he put out only a month ago saying, "Kill the kangaroos because they are getting in the way of our cars". Does he remember that media statement?
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