Page 1172 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
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the power of office do nothing to support the Government's image of itself.
It is interesting to note that, of all the achievements listed by the Chief Minister, many are acknowledged as being dependent upon passage of the budget, which will not even be tabled for debate until the end of September. These "achievements" include 50 aged persons units; a new TAFE tourism and hospitality facility, which is to open we are told in February 1990; and a new primary and preschool in Theodore. These are merely wish-list items at this stage in terms of Government achievements. How the Government can sensibly claim such achievements at this stage in the so-called consultative process of the budget is beyond me.
Incidentally, also included in this category is "indexation of funds available to the CDF". Since funds available to the CDF come from clearly identified sources, I am not sure how the Government intends to index revenues from those sources, but that is what it is saying. This Government's reliance again on the goodwill of the opposition in assuring a budget outcome acceptable to the Labor minority Government, while at the same time claiming the achievements for the Government, is yet another example of the Chief Minister's presumption.
Mr Speaker, I have made a point that this minority Labor Government ignores at its peril. It is a minority government; it depends absolutely on the goodwill of the opposition parties; it assumes an unattractive and unwarranted arrogance when it claims for itself alone the achievements so far of this Assembly. It acts unwisely when it anticipates further support based on the goodwill of the opposition parties while at the same time denigrating or entirely dismissing that support and goodwill. The Chief Minister and her Ministers must, in their own interests and those of the community, which elected this Assembly, recognise the reality of their situation and modify their behaviour to accord with it, otherwise their pretensions will be brought home to them rather forcibly, Mr Speaker.
MR COLLAERY (4.51): The structure of the comments by the Rally will be that I will comment to the Assembly on the vision the Rally saw of this Chief Minister and the manner in which this Government would be expected to proceed in office over its 100 days.
The Rally anticipated something innovative, something new, and something that would attend to those issues that keep the people of this Territory off the footpath, where they are making their claims. We are seeing, if anything, an increase in the number of public demonstrations, where the Rally had its origins. It is sad, as far as the Rally is concerned, that we are moving again to stake our claims to legitimate issues in the arena of footpath protests, and that of course is the worst thing for the Rally.
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