Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I most certainly have great respect for the minister at the table, the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth and Minister for Sport, but it disappoints me that there is not a single public servant over there and there are none of the relevant ministers in the chamber as we debate the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2009. In the Queensland state house, where I was for 20 years, for all legislation there was a senior officer of the department there. In saying that, I want to pay tribute to Tony Burke, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who is the only minister in my 15 or whatever it is years here who has ever come into the parliament to face the music on his own legislation and who has insisted that his senior public servants were in here as well. Not only are these people out of step with the rest of Australia; they are not even in step with their own parliament. They do not even know what the parliament says, let alone what the people of Australia say.

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