Mr RIOLI - 1998-02-18
Is it a fact that, on 28 January, just 23 days after the Tiwi blowout, another ring main unit at Malak blew out? Is it a fact that this outage took out power to the Malak business area? Is it a fact that this ring main unit blew because of a lack of preventive maintenance? Is it a fact that the repairs done to this had to be improvised because PAWA did not have enough spare parts to do the job?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I have a sense of dj vu. I was told once, Maurice, that you would follow Maggie anywhere - mainly out of curiosity because nobody knows where she is going.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, do not attempt to answer until they are quiet.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: You are wasting your own Question Time. Be quiet and listen.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I do not have a report on that particular outage in front of me. I can obtain that report. What I can say - and I said this 30 times yesterday - is that we are spending, as we have always spent, $20m-odd a year on repairs and maintenance. I can read through a long list of repair items. The member for Arafura asked a question on 29 April about the effect on PAWA’s repairs and maintenance budget of the 2% budget constraint. The then minister replied that there had been no cuts to the repairs and maintenance budget for 1996-97 ...
Mr Bailey: Quite obviously, he was misleading the House.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I ask for that interjection to be withdrawn. If the honourable member wants to accuse me of misleading the House, he can move a substantive motion.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wanguri will withdraw the remark.
Mr BAILEY: Because, under standing orders, I have to withdraw the remark, I do so.
Mr POOLE: To show how boring all this is, the opposition initiated a matter of public importance discussion on asset management by the Power and Water Authority in this place on 17 October 1995. I could run through the list of matters raised. We went through all the sorts of things that they are asking again today. At that time, they received a very comprehensive ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! I am ...
Ms Martin interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: ... trying to be fair to members of the opposition but, if they continue in this manner, some of them will be leaving us. I do not want to start warning members on their General Business day, but they know the rules. Their interjections are too frequent, too long and too loud.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I bet the member for Fannie Bay’s husband does not get a word in at the breakfast table in the morning.
There are pages in Hansard of the responses to these types of questions and the attack on the budget of the Power and Water Authority. I am quite happy to stand here and read out pages, but I suggest that would bore the general public and certainly would bore members on this side. I accept that it is ALP strategy today to ask me all these questions, the answers to which they could not expect anybody to be able to pull out of their back pocket. They can continue with the nonsense, but it will get them nowhere.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I have a sense of dj vu. I was told once, Maurice, that you would follow Maggie anywhere - mainly out of curiosity because nobody knows where she is going.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Minister, do not attempt to answer until they are quiet.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: You are wasting your own Question Time. Be quiet and listen.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I do not have a report on that particular outage in front of me. I can obtain that report. What I can say - and I said this 30 times yesterday - is that we are spending, as we have always spent, $20m-odd a year on repairs and maintenance. I can read through a long list of repair items. The member for Arafura asked a question on 29 April about the effect on PAWA’s repairs and maintenance budget of the 2% budget constraint. The then minister replied that there had been no cuts to the repairs and maintenance budget for 1996-97 ...
Mr Bailey: Quite obviously, he was misleading the House.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I ask for that interjection to be withdrawn. If the honourable member wants to accuse me of misleading the House, he can move a substantive motion.
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wanguri will withdraw the remark.
Mr BAILEY: Because, under standing orders, I have to withdraw the remark, I do so.
Mr POOLE: To show how boring all this is, the opposition initiated a matter of public importance discussion on asset management by the Power and Water Authority in this place on 17 October 1995. I could run through the list of matters raised. We went through all the sorts of things that they are asking again today. At that time, they received a very comprehensive ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! I am ...
Ms Martin interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: ... trying to be fair to members of the opposition but, if they continue in this manner, some of them will be leaving us. I do not want to start warning members on their General Business day, but they know the rules. Their interjections are too frequent, too long and too loud.
Mr POOLE: Madam Speaker, I bet the member for Fannie Bay’s husband does not get a word in at the breakfast table in the morning.
There are pages in Hansard of the responses to these types of questions and the attack on the budget of the Power and Water Authority. I am quite happy to stand here and read out pages, but I suggest that would bore the general public and certainly would bore members on this side. I accept that it is ALP strategy today to ask me all these questions, the answers to which they could not expect anybody to be able to pull out of their back pocket. They can continue with the nonsense, but it will get them nowhere.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016