Page 1103 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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welcome, as my colleague Mr Kaine has indicated, the reference to the committee. Mr Speaker, the situation is that the committee structure is such that homework needs to be done, information needs to be supplied by the Administration and the suggested amendment, I suggest, Mr Speaker, fits the circumstance exactly. We will expect, of course, and perhaps it is timely for me to say that in the context of a minority government, our senior civil service advisers to know that when we do look at the record one day, if and when we do, we will have expected them to have attended to these issues with objectivity and no partisanship. If the concerns of my colleague Mr Jensen are in any way accurate, there is a possibility that there has not been a fully objective look at Kingston - the Kingston foreshores area - in terms of its potential for providing the site for the casino.
Mr Speaker, I do not take a point on the casino, save to say that, without prejudice to the Rally's view on the casino, if by force there is to be a casino, then those of us who have lived in Europe and in other places well know that a site such as Kingston, on the water, that provides for canal development and other such matters, could well have provided a very harmonious, peaceful, elegant and attractive place for a centre of classy - as the Deputy Chief Minister referred to it - refined entertainment, be it a casino or something else.
Mr Speaker, regrettably, there has been an inexplicable headlong rush to get into section 19, and one day we will get to the bottom of that. I am certain that one day, if the proper standards of objectivity and assessment have not been applied, people will be called to answer. I do put that on the record and trust that the senior civil servants in this area take note of my comments.
Let me make one final remark, Mr Speaker. Galileo was taken, years ago, for being a nut, and there are many men of vision who are taken to be crazy. Indeed, I often hear the Deputy Chief Minister whisper about me words that come close to that or worse. Mr Speaker, I am not Galileo. I think the earth is round. But I do say that the gentleman who has seen us all in recent times, and in my case over the last couple of years, and whom we have seen at various meetings and groups, Mr Ian Hirst, is probably someone of vision. He is taken differently by various people in the community, but whatever it is, he has pushed for the development of the Kingston Powerhouse site. Really, this reference may well decrease the number of unannounced visits that Mr Hirst tends to give some of the members in the Assembly. So perhaps the Chief Minister was on about some sort of defensiveness about her waiting room and my waiting room and no doubt Mr Kaine's waiting room.
The fact is that I would like publicly to record now at this early stage that that gentleman appears to have been one of the prime movers, along with those other illustrious persons that Mr Jensen mentioned, for this project. And I
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