Portfolio Responsibilities

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (14:58): My questions are to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation and other portfolios:

1. Can the minister explain to the house why he now has responsibility for agriculture, fisheries and forests in the Legislative Council after the Leader of the Government having been minister for agriculture, fisheries and forests for several years?

2. Is this confirmation that this government does not care about agriculture, fisheries and forests?

3. What qualifications does the minister have as an environment minister that the leader of government business in this house does not have or did have and is not being used when it comes to agriculture, fisheries and forests?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (14:59): I can hardly contain myself. I thank the honourable member for his most pathetic question to me—the most pathetic I think I have had in my very short career in this place. The honourable member, clearly, despite having been a Liberal Party minister in the other place in a previous lifetime, would understand—I would have thought, I would have hoped—how the machinery of government is represented in this place: that we have representatives in the lower house who represent our portfolios and consequently we, the two of us up here, share the whole burden of representing the ministerial portfolios in the other place.

The honourable member may have a different point of view about who should have what division but, frankly, it does not make a lot of difference. We both give quality service to this chamber in our representative duties and will continue to do so whichever portfolios are allocated to us from time to time. I won't draw any conclusions on the qualifications of the honourable questioner in terms of his ability to represent not now the Liberal Party, of course, but Family First in this chamber, and what qualifications you need to make such a terrible hash of the job of a ministry where you take out your ministerial staff with you to go doorknocking in your own electorate. What sort of qualifications do you need to be a minister—

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Point of order, Mr President.

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: —in the Liberal government, I have to say. What sort of qualifications—

The PRESIDENT: Point of order. Minister, he has a point of order.

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: I am very happy to have a debate on this. Let's look at the last election and where ministers now went with their staff. Be very careful what you say because I happen to know what was going on in the last few months.