COP THAT YOU.......

Date: 13 May 1993

Before the High Court sent me packing I had been asking honourable members on both sides of the House why they were so addicted to free trade policies and a fictitious level playing field. In this, the 37th, Parliament it seems this addiction is still with us

Budget 1993-94

Mr CLEARY-

I direct my question to the Prime Minister. Notwithstanding the claims of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer to the contrary, most observers are of the opinion that the budget is regressive and unpopular.

Does the reaction of Labor Party members indicate a widening gulf between the rank and file and the inner sanctum of the cabinet?

Can the Prime Minister explain to the House how it is that he and the Treasurer could produce a budget so unpopular with the rank and file of the parliamentary party, the true believers and the ACTU?

Finally, does the Prime Minister accept the proposition that this was a budget designed to appease financial markets and that, as Kenneth Davidson argued in the Age last Saturday, the Commonwealth has abdicated its responsibility for unemployment?

Member's Statement

The Prime Minister went on to say: There are remedies. He can always apply to come back, but it is a big question whether we would ever have him. Firstly, I wish to make it clear that, contrary to the Prime Minister's implication, I have never been a member of the Labor Party and therefore, by definition, I could not apply to come back.

Secondly, the Prime Minister's accusation that I am a fink needs to be corrected. To describe me as a fink as in a contemptible or undesirable person is a matter of opinion to which the Prime Minister is entitled. To describe me as a fink as in a strike-breaker or blackleg is an assertion of fact which is totally unfounded. I wish to go on record that, as a teacher unionist, I never once blacklegged on my comrades.

Mr CLEARY (Wills)

It has been a grand morning for the rewriting of history. It seems that honourable members from both sides of the House have burnt the midnight oil searching through their history texts. Honourable members on my right have tearfully looked back to good old Bob, once called Pig Iron Bob as he loaded the bullets for the Japanese prior to the Second World War. He, we are told, is the coalition's saviour. What a joke!

Here we have the rabid free traders harking back to the good old protectionist days of Black Jack McEwen and the Anglophile Menzies who, when the economy was going through a tough trot, slipped in import quotas to protect Australian industry from imports. Are opposition members trying to tell the House that they are now great supporters of protectionism rather than free trade? Are we to expect a private member's bill supporting increased tariffs and the resumption of quotas?

Mr CLEARY (Wills) (1.10 p.m.)

Those who have read just a modicum of Australian history or heard a few stories around the kitchen table would be aware of the role of the British empire in the war that left 60,000 Australian soldiers dead and 137,000 wounded between 1914 and 1918. Anyone with such knowledge would have been more than a little confused by the latest foray of the Prime Minister (Mr Keating) into military history, GATT and free trade in his now famous victory speech at Villers-Bretonneux.

There was me believing Australian soldiers were thinking only of England when they rushed off to Europe to defend the cherished British Empire of the honourable member for Farrer (Mr Tim Fischer). I never thought to tell my history students that those who fought in the trenches were really defending the French in the knowledge that, 80 years later, their sacrifice would be a key bargaining chip in Australia's push for a pure international free trade regime.

Mr CLEARY (Wills)

I read with great disappointment in today's press comments attributed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Gareth Evans) in relation to the proposed visit to Australia by the President of Sinn Fein, Mr Gerry Adams.

In demanding that Adams publicly renounce the use of violence, the minister displays a very poor understanding of the historical circumstances which have produced the republican movement. Such statements also misrepresent the nature and source of violence in Northern Ireland. The minister of course did not bother to ask Prince Charles whether he would renounce the use of terror by the armed forces in Northern Ireland.

Mr CLEARY

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Many in this House welcome official statements which indicate the government's commitment to the achievement of a sovereign, independent Australia. The Prime Minister himself has consistently accused the coalition of tugging the forelock on such matters.

In this context, why did the Prime Minister allow the foreign minister to flag the imposition of visa conditions on any proposed visit by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams which shows duplicity on the issue of violence in Northern Ireland and simply mirrors the confrontationist approach of the British government? Furthermore, how does he respond to those who argue that the government's position on East Timor, like its position on Gerry Adams, shows a distinct lack of independence?

Mr CLEARY (Wills)--(7.29 p.m.)

What a pathetic exhibition we have seen in the parliament from the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) and the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Cameron) in relation to Carmen Lawrence and whatever else tickled their fancy. We had the decrepit character from Western Australia, the honourable member for O'Connor, calling Carmen Lawrence a murderer last week.

Now we have the honourable member for Stirling sanctimoniously asking members on the other side of the House to withdraw comments made about him while he uses parliamentary privilege to engage in a typically vicious attack on another member's character in the standard coward's castle. The words `dishonest', `immoral' and `self-centred' rolled off the tongue....

Mr CLEARY (Wills)

It would be remiss of me not to give the House a bit of a resume of the thoughts of the great Bronwyn Bishop--certainly they do not rival the thoughts of the great Chairman Mao.

Her thoughts were reported in the Sunday Sun. Mrs Bishop got quite an extensive little run in the paper and I have never read more twaddle in my life. Bronwyn Bishop tells us that the big problem with Australia is workers. The trade unions are the problem. That is why there is unemployment. Unemployment is due to trade unions. Of course, Kelty is a mongrel. He should never have got his finger into this regional economic task force.

It is funny, is it not? Everyone in the House has been spruiking about regional economic development--the National Party is hot to trot on it; it came from the Labor side--but not Bronny Bishop, the next leader of the Liberal Party. She has not got a clue.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Violence Against Women

Mr CLEARY--I also have a question for the Attorney-General. Despite the offerings of former broadcaster Terry Lane and filmmaker Don Parham on the issue of violence against women, feminists continue to argue that the criminal justice system is biased against women.

Contrary to the Victorian Law Reform Commission's 1989 finding that there was no gender bias in the law of provocation, critics, including myself, believe, as Dr Adrian Howe of La Trobe University said: The commission suffered from its singular failure to address the key issues raised by feminist analysts as well as from a faulty empirical study. Given your government's expressed concern for the rights of women, will you guarantee to put the issue of the defence of provocation, including its gender biased interpretation by some judges, on the agenda at the next meeting of state and federal attorneys-general?

STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS Fitzroy Football Club

Mr CLEARY (Wills)

I concur with the comments of my learned Independent comrade the honourable member for North Sydney (Mr Mack) about the preparedness of the Prime Minister (Mr Keating) to spend money in Sydney. Down in Melbourne we are starting to wonder whether this is a government for--dare I say it--the New South Wales Right and the Sydneysiders or a government for the whole of Australia.

We will have our airport sold to fund the Badgerys Creek airport, and we are not too happy about that. Honourable members might be aware that, at my behest, the Fitzroy Football Club--a club which I do not barrack for; I barrack for Carlton and, unfortunately, since John Elliott took over Carlton it has been very hard to barrack for it--moved its training quarters to the Coburg city oval, in the middle of what used to be Labor territory.

Our big problem is how to fund this manoeuvre and how to refurbish the Coburg football ground when there is no money for regional economic development.

Mr CLEARY (Wills) (2.54 p.m.)

Mr Deputy Speaker, I certainly feel for your having to sit there and listen to the kind of waffle that the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) has just gone on with. He was allocated 20 minutes to speak but you will notice that he spoke for only 15 minutes because he had nothing to say.

Mr Tuckey--Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. I was asked to speak for only 10 minutes so this donkey could speak for 10 minutes before question time. It is outrageous for him to say that. I wanted to speak for another 20 minutes, you flea.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Hollis)--Order! The honourable member for O'Connor will withdraw that word. Mr Tuckey--I withdraw my comment that he is a flea, but that is what makes other people scratch. Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER--That is all you have to do. Now sit down.

Mr CLEARY

I thank the member's party for giving him only 10 minutes. What his party should have done was give its last 20 speakers only 10 minutes. What a lot of drivel we have heard. We thought the Human Rights (Sexual Conduct) Bill was about what consenting adults could do in private sexually, but we found out it was about female circumcision, abortion and incest