Nuclear Waste

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): Are you sure he has had no warnings? My supplementary is to the Minister for Regional Development. Given a nuclear dump is not a matter of supply or confidence, why is the minister unable to speak for himself?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (14:45): We have taken a position in relation to this question which is a united position. We have considered this deeply, and we also believed that we had bipartisan support in relation to this question. This doesn't just—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It doesn't just rely upon what the Labor Party's position is in relation to this matter, it relies—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —it relies upon the attitude and the perspective of the Liberal Party in this state. It is necessary. It is a necessary precondition to furthering this issue. We know that this is a long-term discussion. We were seeking, in an open, honest and I would say courageous way, to put on the public agenda something that has been urged upon us by those opposite and by the business community in South Australia.

We always said that we would expose ourselves to the most detailed community consultation process available. We would experiment with innovative processes to establish what the community was thinking about these matters, but we always said that this ultimately was a matter for government and that we would make our own judgements about what the way forward was. We have had to take the disparate points of view, suffering the burden of the Leader of the Opposition—

The Hon. J.M. Rankine interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Wright is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —suffering the burden of the Leader of the Opposition having a fit of panic at one stage during the process, and we have nevertheless decided to press ahead with the public discussion about this matter.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Point of order, sir.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: I think there are significant sections—

The SPEAKER: Would the Premier be seated? This is getting like an Australian Union of Students conference, and I have very bad memories of those.

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: I have never been to one.

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart?

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: Yes, sir: debate. Talking about the Leader of the Opposition again has no connection to the question about the Minister for Regional Development.

The SPEAKER: I have ruled on this several times already, and I am afraid I am not with the member for Stuart on the question of relevance.

An honourable member: It's actually National Union of Students.

The SPEAKER: No, it's been changed subsequently.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: That's right. What we have are juvenile question time tactics on an issue of gravity for not only the people of South Australia but the nation and indeed the world. This is not just an issue that the people of South Australia are watching. The international community are watching us and they are particularly looking at the attitude of those opposite. What was beginning to occur here is that there was international attention—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —international attention being paid to the way in which we were carefully constructing this debate about this most important issue. Those opposite have been asked this question, and they have been tested about whether they are up to participating in a mature debate about an issue of democracy—a really important issue that I said would test our democracy. Which political party demonstrated that they have failed the test of the democracy? The Liberal Party of South Australia.