Page 1032 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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take a view on the moral question of whether there should be a casino or not. The Rally firmly opposes the building of a casino on our City Hill, adjacent to our City Hill, and within the Parliamentary Triangle. That is not an image for future generations. If, God forbid, it goes ahead, it will be a lasting monument to the corrupt era of a gambling government.
Mr Speaker, we have heard the Liberal Party's policy. We can well understand the inner conflicts, and I do not wish to capitalise on the difficult position my colleague Mr Kaine finds himself in, but we do point out that the planning decision is the real issue here. We have seen open government cease in the last couple of months. There has been a pretended open budget. Yet when we agree to withhold comment, this Deputy Chief Minister goes on television, as he did last night, and says that we have got nothing to say, that the opposition parties have got nothing to say about the budget.
Governments should not be run by trickery and tactics, Mr Speaker. The Liberal Party needs to take note of the fact that the Residents Rally will act if this Government further closes its doors on open government. We now cannot even get a response under freedom of information that we used to get. Even under the previous Labor Federal Ministers, at least the Residents Rally was able to get access to files. Now that is not possible. Now we get a bill for $2,000 or $3,000, money which of course we do not have because we are a community based group.
The fact is that this section 19 decision, this headlong rush to put a building in our city, is clearly opposed by a silent majority of professionals in the architecture and town planning industry. Of course, the major national developers know what is going on. They want to have a national plan for this great city, and we are being denied that because one edifice is going to be put up next to our City Hill. It is an outrageous act to propose that without a planning inquiry of the type that was had before the Darling Harbour complex went ahead in Sydney, for example - and do not forget Mr Greiner cancelled the casino for that complex within 24 hours of getting into government, and that complex did not collapse economically.
My colleague Mr Moore will draw some points out about the fallaciousness of suggesting that the casino is going to benefit the revenue of the ACT. It will give some jobs to some workers for a short time. Some months ago, I recall Mr Punch telling me, "Mr Collaery, we've got to see all those workers out in the Southside Caravan Park in public housing. That is my duty. That is what I will achieve".
Mr Speaker, itinerant labour is a great tradition in this country. The poems and ballads of Henry Lawson attest to that. Many people who worked on the Hill have moved on and do move on out of the climate of the Monaro when they wish to. There is no reason why we should seek to keep those
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