Leadership of Parliamentary Liberal Party Photographing of Proceedings Questions Without Notice Meat Industry
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LEADERSHIP OF PARLIAMENTARY LmERAL PARTY Tuesday, 23 April 1991 ASSEMBLY 1515 Tuesday, 23 April 1991 The SPEAKER (Hon. Ken Coghill) took the chair at 2.5 p.m. and read the prayer. LEADERSHIP OF PARLIAMENTARY LIBERAL PARTY Mr KENNETf (Leader of the Opposition) - I inform the House that earlier today I was elected Leader of the Parliamentary liberal Party and the honourable member for Hawthorn was elected Deputy Leader. PHOTOGRAPHING OF PROCEEDINGS The SPEAKER - Order! I advise the House that I have approved requests from the Age, the Australian and the Herald-Sun to take still photographs of question time. No additional lighting or flashlights will be used. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE MEAT INDUSTRY Mr KENNETf (Leader of the Opposition) - I refer to the special relationship between the Premier and Mr Wally Curran and I ask -- Honourable members interjecting. Mr KENNETf - What steps has the Premier taken to stop the actions of Mr Curran's union in Seymour and Wodonga which are currently destroying meat industry jobs and stopping exports from Victoria? Ms KIRNER (premier) - I take this opportunity of congratulating the new Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on their wins in the party room and I also pass on to the honourable members for Cippsland West and Brighton my personal respects for their contributions in this House and the way in which particularly the honourable member for Cippsland West paid personal respect to me and did not engage in tactics that were inappropriate. I am pleased - perhaps I should say I am disappointed - to note that, although there has been a change in leadership, I heard from listening to both the Leader of the Opposition today and his wife in a former broadcast that they did not even agree on QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 1516 ASSEMBLY Tuesday, 23 April 1991 whether he knew about the challenge beforehand. It was quite clear the Leader of the Opposition said today he had one telephone call about the matter last night. Mr UEBERMAN (Benambra) - On a point of order, as the member for Benambra where a meatworks is situated in Wodonga I am concerned because workers are being sacked-- Honourable members interjecting. Mr LIEBERMAN - The question asked by the Leader of the Opposition was direct and important. The Premier is debating the matter and she is not answering whether the safety, employment and economy of this State is at risk. The SPEAKER - Order! On the point of order, I was prepared to tolerate some departure from the normal form of answer under the circumstances and to that extent I do not uphold the point of order, but I ask the Premier to come back to the point of the question and to confine her remarks to those points. Ms KIRNER (premier) - It is difficult to understand why a new Leader of the Opposition would persist with the same line of questioning as the former Leader of the Opposition. The only thing I can suggest is that he has not settled down and therefore he is still using the same backroom boys to write the questions. Many times in this House I have addressed the question of the meat industry. The only long-term resolution -fortunately it is not far away, I believe -to the issues facing both employers and unions in the meat industry is the Harrison inquiry. We expect that the report of that inquiry will be handed down in May of this year and that it will pave the way for appropriate investment and cooperation between the meat unions and the employers. I was interested to see in the newspapers this morning the chief executive of Wodonga Meats Pty Ltd quoted as having said that he had respect for the union and for the needs of his company and that he wished that the two parties could get together and resolve the issues. That is my view and it is Commissioner Harrison's view on the wider issue of the industry as a whole. It is within the power of the two groups to achieve that and they should get on with it. Mr McNAMARA (Leader of the National Party) - Does the Premier support picketing and other industrial action by Mr Curran's meatworkers union, which is designed to prevent the use of contract labour in the Victorian meat industry? Ms KIRNER (Premier) - As I said, the backroom boys who have been writing the questions for the past three months are still writing them. Honourable members interjecting. The SPEAKER - Order! The Leader of the National Party has asked his question. QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE Tuesday, 23 April 1991 ASSEMBLY 1517 Ms KIRNER - The National Party has not changed; I hope the Leader of the Opposition will not follow those tactics because if we had two cowboys running this State - Cisco and Pancho - it would be an absolute disaster for Victoria. The SPEAKER - Order! If the Premier is referring to other honourable members she should use their correct titles. Ms KIRNER - It is certainly an issue for the opposition that it is incapable of taking a positive line directed towards the future of Victoria, either in this House or outside. I was slightly heartened by listening to part of the Leader of the Opposition's press conference in which he said that he was on about bringing the community together and about cooperation to take the community forward. In fact, I thought he had been reading my language. But when you come into the House what do you see? Nothing has changed: the same line of questioning, the same building up of division in the community, the same unwillingness to look to the umpire - Harrison - and at possibilities for cooperation. The faces may have changed but there is no change in policies; there are still the one-liners about division and with no sense of the future, only a sense of disputation. If that is the line the new Leader of the Opposition wishes to take the community will give him the same treatment that it gave the previous Leader. MAJOR INVESTMENTS PROJECTS FOR VICTORIA Mrs GARBUTf (Greensborough) - In light of the recent announcement regarding major new investment projects in Victoria, can the Premier advise the House of the government's efforts to secure further major investments in the State? The SPEAKER - Order! The question is very broad and I wonder whether the honourable member could make it more specific. Honourable members interjecting. The SPEAKER - Order! The honourable member for Evelyn. Mrs GARBUIT - Will the Premier advise the House of specific projects that will advantage Victoria? Honourable members interjecting. The SPEAKER - Order! It will assist the conduct of question time if honourable members on both sides of the Chamber remain silent. I particularly ask the honourable members for Richmond and Doncaster to remain silent. Ms KIRNER (Premier) - An essential task of the government is to attract and create new jobs and new private sector investment in Victoria. I was very pleased last week that Aerospace Technologies of Australia - ASTA - which has a development at Avalon, has signed another important contract for aerospace development. Hawker De Havilland Victoria Ltd will supply the Boeing company with an estimated $455 million of composite tail control surfaces equipment for the new Boeing 777 aircraft. This important QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE 1518 ASSEMBLY Tuesday, 23 April 1991 investment hardly received a blip in terms of coverage in the media, yet it is the biggest single order ever placed by an overseas company with the Australian aerospace industry, which will take Victoria forward. It is not the sort of industry that we have seen on the opposition benches, because the honourable members on that side of the Chamber are interested solely in the generation of more power - not the power that gets Victoria going, but the power of power politics. I cannot believe that we have today a new Leader of the Opposition who claims he did not know what was going on. If he does not know what is going on in his own party -- The SPEAKER - Order! I ask the Premier to return to the question. Mr DELZOPPO (Narracan) - On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I direct your attention to the Standing Order dealing with relevance and to the fact that what the Premier is saying is not relevant to the question. I ask you, Mr Speaker, to bring her back to order. The SPEAKER - Order! I have already done that. Ms KIRNER (Premier) - The second area of major potential for industry in Victoria is industry associated with the environment. I am pleased to indicate that early next month I will be able to make an announcement on the detail of a major de-inking plant for Victoria. This is a substantial multimillion dollar private sector investment for Victoria in recycling, not the kind of recycling seen on the other side, but recycling that adds real value to the economy of Victoria. There are two important issues in the de-inking plant. One is the issue of recycling newspapers so that we do not have to reduce the number of trees in Victoria, and the second issue is the potential for co-generation of power. Both of those issues are far . reaching for investment in Victoria. As well as that Victoria's ability to win the AMECON contract means that throughout Victoria there are a number of subcontracts which are ensuring' that jobs are being generated. I am delighted to inform the House that Ericsson Defence Systems has signed a $40 million contract with Bofors Electronics Pacific to provide ten radar systems for the frigate contract.