TRANSPORT MINISTERIAL COUNCIL MEETING

Ms BREUER (Giles) (14:26): My question is to the Minister for Transport. Will the minister advise of any outcomes from the recent transport ministers' council meeting and, in particular, of meetings held the evening before the council—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms BREUER: —and, importantly, will the minister advise if there have been any criticisms of him—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Ms BREUER: —for attending those meetings and how would he answer those criticisms?

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (14:27): Thank you. It is my great pleasure to answer this question because, in fact, the ministerial council meeting for transport ministers that was held last Friday in Canberra was, without doubt, the best I have ever been to and it is a great credit to the new federal Labor minister, Anthony Albanese. In fact—

Mr Goldsworthy interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I have no doubt they will interject a lot because they should be embarrassed by their behaviour in this place last Thursday and they will not want anyone to talk about it, but it is important that the idiocy that went on here last Thursday about a very important council meeting should be answered. One of the things that happens at every ministerial council meeting to which I have ever been is that there is always a dinner the night before and there are often meetings with other ministers the night and day before. It is a very important part of the process. Anyone who has been a minister, you would think, would know that. I thought that, since the Leader of the Opposition had been a minister, he would know that. In fact, when I checked, though, there may be an explanation because he was a minister for 90 days between 4 December 2001 and 5 March 2002. It is well-known that some film festivals run longer than that, but, even more importantly, what—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My point of order is relevance. The term that the Leader of the Opposition spent as a minister—

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr WILLIAMS: —does not seem to have any relevance to the—

The SPEAKER: Order! I do uphold the point of order.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I will come back to the point, sir. I just found it very hard to understand that, in fact, two-thirds of their time they were either in caretaker mode, or clinging on after they lost the election. But what happened is that, on the Thursday evening, I met with Tim Palace, the very good Labor minister from Victoria and, at a meeting prior to the general gathering of ministers, we agreed on a summit to be held in Mount Gambier in the South-East sometime in April between us and our senior departmental people to discuss a common approach, in particular to the freight challenge in the Green Triangle area; something that, despite their not thinking it is a worthwhile thing to do, it is something which has been welcomed in effusive terms by the President of SELGA (South-East Local Government Association), Steve Perryman, in The Border Watch very recently. Obviously a good initiative. It follows on Anthony Albanese's visiting the South-East as federal minister—the first time we have ever been able to get a federal minister to visit the South-East.

A number of very important things came out of the meeting, including a devolution of responsibility to the states to drive the policy and reform agenda. I advise the Leader of the Opposition that he shouldn't go to these dinners. 'A boozy dinner of Labor mates,' he called it. It is largely our fault that there were only Labor ministers, but they have to take some of the credit too. Let's face it: they have to take some of the credit for the fact that there is not a Liberal minister to be found in the commonwealth any more, because they are the most losingest party in the history of the conservative party of this country. So we cannot take all the credit; you do a lot of it yourself.

What is true is that I can concede to the Leader of the Opposition that there were only Labor ministers there, because the only Liberal minister in Australia who goes to a ministerial council meeting is Rory McEwen, who is part of this government. So can I say that it is not all our fault that there are only Labor ministers; you did a great deal to achieve it yourself.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Can I assure the Leader of the Opposition that those important decisions that were made—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: They scoff. I have never seen people more arrogant about being the losingest branch of the losingest political party in Australia's history. Did you notice they took one on each today? They took one on each, and they attacked all of us until they ran out. We still had about 20 members left when they ran out of people who were attacking us in private members. The major decisions taken at that council—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: All the other ministers in the other states go. No other parliament, I am advised by them, criticised their minister for attending that dinner because they had the good sense—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: They have the good sense. They have the maturity to know. They do not have the underdeveloped juvenile personality that resents the fact that other people are ministers and they are not. The other parliaments have the good sense to know that it is very important for their state for people to be there.

Can I also say that I assure the Leader of the Opposition if he thinks it is a boozy dinner, he has not seen the new influence of Lindsay Tanner on the federal government, because it would be a brave man who drank too much of the wine that Lindsay puts on, I can tell you. They do not even put peppermints on at the meetings any more. He is a tough finance minister.

These things are discussed between ministers, and can I explain it again to a person who has never—he was a minister for 16 days and the parliament never sat in that period—that is why he does not understand—

The Hon. M.D. Rann: That is why he was so good in question time.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: He never got caught in a question. What ministers do is talk about things among themselves out of the earshot quite often even of bureaucrats. That is what you do. Sometimes you do like to think you are actually in charge. That is why those things happen the night before. The complaint was made that I was not here to answer questions on a tram derailment report, but of course the tram derailment report they are referring to was tabled at the start of question time on the Wednesday. It is three pages long. A person of average intelligence would be able to read three pages in a few minutes. I am prepared to concede that it would take a member of the opposition longer. I am prepared to concede that, but they still—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Even if he got someone to read it out to him, he could have got it in 10 minutes; that left 50 minutes. I am here today, but this is the second time that the opposition has agreed to a pair for me and then attacked me for going. This is the famous military tactic of advancing once the enemy is safely out of sight. It really does cut down on the people that you lose in the engagement if you advance once they are gone. I urge the Leader of the Opposition not to behave in such a juvenile fashion if he does not want me to go to a ministerial council dinner. Believe me, if you reckon they are fun, you really have not been a minister for long; I would certainly rather be home with my family than at a dinner with Labor ministers, even though they were all Labor ministers. But if you really don't want me to go, don't grant a pair. Don't engage in the most blatant hypocrisy of granting a pair because you know you should, and then attacking people once they've gone.