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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4423 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

impossible job in addressing all the issues that represent as vitally important to the people of the ACT. It is a real shame that the ACT Minister for Environment could not be at a ministerial council meeting on the Murray Darling because the ACT Minister for Environment is also the ACT Attorney-General and had an equally important meeting to attend in Hobart.

Mr Wood: Well, you know the answer.

MR STANHOPE: Yes, it is 25 members and eight ministers.

MRS DUNNE: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Minister, why did you think the most important issue at SCAG was the issue of whether women barristers could become QCs and judges, because it was the only thing you spoke publicly about? Do you think that women in the ACT will sleep easier knowing that even though their gardens are dead and we have run out of water to wash our clothes, our hair and our children, you would have been doing your utmost to make sure that those few amongst us who are barristers would become QCs or judges?

MR SPEAKER: Resume your seat, Mrs Dunne. I rule the question out. It is not a supplementary question.

Mr Stanhope: It was an absolute disgrace. It was an embarrassing disgrace.

Opposition members interjecting-

MR SPEAKER: Order, members! I call Ms MacDonald.

Mounted Police

MS MacDONALD: My question is to Mr Wood, in his capacity as the minister for police. Minister, there has been some noise today about the decision to disband the mounted police team. Could the minister inform the Assembly of the circumstances surrounding this decision?

MR WOOD: Well, there has certainly been a lot of whinnying from over that side. I have been sitting here waiting for the opposition to ask a question about that. It is the big issue for some people here today, but they were not game to ask a question, so I had to get it via a dorothy dixer.

Mr Smyth: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Questions cannot anticipate answers to questions that have been asked on the notice paper. There are actually a series of questions on the notice paper, if the minister had bothered to consult it, concerning the mounted police. I would suggest that this question is out of order.

MR SPEAKER: I have not seen the question.

MR WOOD: In any event, Mr Speaker, that is not on the notice paper because it has been answered. The answer is probably with Mr Pratt now.

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