Ms MARTIN - 1999-10-14
Yesterday the Chief Minister had an opportunity to debate Labor in this House on the issue of crime and crime prevention. What he did was shut down the debate after dithering for about 15 minutes. It was a disgraceful performance. None of his lazy backbenchers or his ministry uttered one word. He had 24 hours to prepare for that debate and yet contributed nothing but mumblings and bumblings. Can he tell this House why he won’t implement a whole-of-government approach to crime prevention?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I’m surprised the Leader of the Opposition persists with this stupidity. I believe that yesterday’s performance was the most disgraceful by an opposition on any General Business Day in the time that I have been in this House. Those who have been on this side of the House for many years longer than me have told me that not even in Terry Smith’s time was there a General Business Day that was so lazy and so incompetent.
It is a pity that these senior Territorians who are in this Chamber today were not here yesterday to see such performance. Territorians should understand that what happened yesterday. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposed a motion calling on the government to change the whole way it does business, by setting up a coordinating office in the Department of the Chief Minister to take over all law-and-order issues for the Northern Territory. That was in my opinion, and I hold firmly to that opinion, done simply to justify a swan to New Zealand.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition had previously said he was going to produce a discussion paper. That discussion paper would have been agreed on in caucus. Any legitimate opposition in the Northern Territory intending to propose such a serious matter for debate would at the very least have done something along the lines of what the government has done with the Planning Act - put out a discussion paper and see what the government and the community thought of that proposal, maybe for a number of months. To imagine that you can lead this government by press release, that you can lead this government by justifying a swan to New Zealand and a trip to the football finals in Sydney and Melbourne, and to suggest that this government would seriously contemplate ...
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Please just settle down a little. The Chief Minister is on his feet, he is attempting to answer a question and there is far too much interjection from both sides of the House. Short, sharp interjection, as has been said many times, is appropriate. The sort of interjecting we’ve been getting is not.
Mr BURKE: To our senior citizens, I do apologise for the comments and utterances of the opposition on this issue. The simple situation is this. If you want to use the General Business Day to effect, this is the day that is put aside every 6 days for some sort of an opposition to gather themselves together, to put forward their policies at that time and put them up for serious debate.
You don’t come into this House and suggest to Australians, at about 5 minutes’ notice, that they should change the Australian flag and expect serious debate, as the Leader of the Opposition supposes. She wants to change the Australian flag, which I think will only confuse Territorians and Australians even more.
What is worse, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition comes in here and wants to change the whole way the government does business with regard to the coordination of law-and-order issues. He puts out not one piece of information, apart from a press release and some media comment with regard to his trip to New Zealand. Then, when he does propose the motion, the substance of the motion is with regard to diversionary programs and victim/offender conferencing, which he sees as some new light on the horizon. As I answered yesterday, those programs are already in place in the Northern Territory.
This parliament is open for debate. It is open for serious debate. It is certainly not the place for the Leader of the Opposition or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to justify trips at the taxpayers’ expense to New Zealand.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I’m surprised the Leader of the Opposition persists with this stupidity. I believe that yesterday’s performance was the most disgraceful by an opposition on any General Business Day in the time that I have been in this House. Those who have been on this side of the House for many years longer than me have told me that not even in Terry Smith’s time was there a General Business Day that was so lazy and so incompetent.
It is a pity that these senior Territorians who are in this Chamber today were not here yesterday to see such performance. Territorians should understand that what happened yesterday. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposed a motion calling on the government to change the whole way it does business, by setting up a coordinating office in the Department of the Chief Minister to take over all law-and-order issues for the Northern Territory. That was in my opinion, and I hold firmly to that opinion, done simply to justify a swan to New Zealand.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition had previously said he was going to produce a discussion paper. That discussion paper would have been agreed on in caucus. Any legitimate opposition in the Northern Territory intending to propose such a serious matter for debate would at the very least have done something along the lines of what the government has done with the Planning Act - put out a discussion paper and see what the government and the community thought of that proposal, maybe for a number of months. To imagine that you can lead this government by press release, that you can lead this government by justifying a swan to New Zealand and a trip to the football finals in Sydney and Melbourne, and to suggest that this government would seriously contemplate ...
Members interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Please just settle down a little. The Chief Minister is on his feet, he is attempting to answer a question and there is far too much interjection from both sides of the House. Short, sharp interjection, as has been said many times, is appropriate. The sort of interjecting we’ve been getting is not.
Mr BURKE: To our senior citizens, I do apologise for the comments and utterances of the opposition on this issue. The simple situation is this. If you want to use the General Business Day to effect, this is the day that is put aside every 6 days for some sort of an opposition to gather themselves together, to put forward their policies at that time and put them up for serious debate.
You don’t come into this House and suggest to Australians, at about 5 minutes’ notice, that they should change the Australian flag and expect serious debate, as the Leader of the Opposition supposes. She wants to change the Australian flag, which I think will only confuse Territorians and Australians even more.
What is worse, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition comes in here and wants to change the whole way the government does business with regard to the coordination of law-and-order issues. He puts out not one piece of information, apart from a press release and some media comment with regard to his trip to New Zealand. Then, when he does propose the motion, the substance of the motion is with regard to diversionary programs and victim/offender conferencing, which he sees as some new light on the horizon. As I answered yesterday, those programs are already in place in the Northern Territory.
This parliament is open for debate. It is open for serious debate. It is certainly not the place for the Leader of the Opposition or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to justify trips at the taxpayers’ expense to New Zealand.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016