Shadow Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin accused "mindless marionette" Derrick Burgess of swallowing up almost an entire Budget debate reading out a statement prepared by his civil servants.

Works and Engineering Minister Mr. Burgess spent two and a half hours delivering his presentation on Friday — leaving just half an hour for his Opposition counterpart to raise any questions in the House of Assembly.

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin said the Minister could have left more time for discussion by summarising some of the information instead of reiterating his civil servants' brief word for word.

"I believe as he meticulously meandered through the brief that was written for him," Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin told the House, "the Minister has shown exactly what a mindless marionette really is."

In a Ministerial Statement a month ago, Mr. Burgess had labelled Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin a "mindless marionette" for "parroting arrant rubbish" at the whim of The Royal Gazette and the Mid Ocean News.

She replied at the time by pointing out that ironically Mr. Burgess was reading those insults from a statement written by one of his henchmen.

In the debate, Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin was beaten by the clock as she attempted to start asking questions about the controversial court/Police building in Hamilton.

As soon as she mentioned the topic, Mr. Burgess piped up that the matter could not be discussed because it did not fall under the relevant Heads listed for debate.

He need not have worried because, before Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin could pitch any questions, committee chair Wayne Furbert hammered the desk to signal time was up.

In the half-hour or so before that, Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin said roads need to be improved for safety; a geological survey for the Causeway was three or four years too late; and that she had spoken to people who didn't bother bidding for Government construction contracts because they knew they wouldn't get them.

Mr. Burgess replied that nobody is excluded from bidding from those contracts.