Opposition keeps Burke from Rio

18 Jun 2012, 11:08 am   -   Source: AAP
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(AAP)

(AAP)

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke will not be attending a United Nations sustainable development conference in Brazil.

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Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke has cancelled a planned trip to Brazil for the United Nations sustainable development conference.

The decision was made after the opposition refused to grant him a pair in parliament on Monday and Tuesday.

They want to quiz Mr Burke about his plans to create a network of marine parks, unveiled last week.

"It would want to be an extraordinary attack they want to run," he told ABC radio on Monday.

Mr Burke wanted to use the conference to lobby other nations to follow Australia's lead on the issue of marine park protections.

"My presence there simply would have been an opportunity to maximise that - completely in the national interest - and an argument I've never heard anyone come against," he said.

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Your Comments

A Dysfunctional Workaround

Marcel - from Perth, 11 months ago

Clearly “paring” is a dysfunctional workaround to try and prop up a flawed voting system – the two-party-preferred system that excludes a significant sector of the population from representation. Scrap the two-party preferred charade and elect lower house representatives using a proportional representation model so that Parliament can get on with business instead of wasting taxpayer’s money on antics like “pairing”.

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