New MPs slack off
SIMON KEARNEY Sunday Mail
13jan02
TWO months after winning the hearts and minds of their electorates, about a third of the nation's newest federal parliamentarians have repaid their supporters by going on holidays.
Of the 22 fledgling federal MPs, the offices of seven said their political bosses were on leave.
Some MPs could not be contacted and others admitted to having taken holidays since the November 10 election.
The man who won Cheryl Kernot's seat of Dickson for the Liberal Party, Peter Dutton, is overseas attending the World Youth Leaders Forum and gets back to Australia on Thursday.
In Sydney, the Double Bay office of new Wentworth MP Peter King is closed until Thursday.
Even when it reopened, staff said Mr King would be away for another week.
"Lucky for some," said a staffer, who answered the phone.
Labor's star recruit, former ACTU president Jennie George, who won the NSW south coast seat of Dobell, is also on holidays.
"She's having a couple of weeks' break with her family," her office said.
The office of popular Macarthur MP, former ultra-marathon runner Pat Farmer, said he was on holiday for at least another week.
However Mr Farmer later said he had been helping local bushfire victims and was meeting constituent commitments even though he was not in the office.
Victorian Labor MP Brendan O'Connor is off to Vanuatu this weekend but said he would be back for the new MPs' training course on January 31.
Promising Victorian Liberal MP Sophie Panopoulos, who came to prominence during the 1998 Constitutional Convention, said she had taken four days' leave in addition to public holidays.
The training course for new MPs will teach them how to find their way around Parliament, familiarise them with procedures and advise them on the services Parliament provides to them.
|
||