Page 1359 - Week 07 - Thursday, 24 August 1989
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and I think the word "peeved" is appropriate. There is a room opposite the lifts on the first floor that I went to on four or five occasions in the first week or two as I met groups of people, more than one person, because the rooms we are in are not large, as you know. There was a fine room there with a great table presented, I think, by the Government of Kenya, and I used that room for meetings. I thought on one occasion, "Hey, this would make a great room for me. There is a quite large office beside it and quite a large meeting room". So, I said, "No, we are obviously using this as a meeting room; it is freely available to us all; I must not have it". But Mr Stevenson has it now.
Ms Maher: It was offered to you, was it not?
MR WOOD: No, it was never offered, and I never sought it, because I assumed that was a room for everybody.
I turn now to staff. The Chief Minister had mentioned the demands on staff, both in numbers and in salary. In fact, I can say that the first crisis of the Follett Labor Government was a staffing one, as the members of other parties blackmailed the Government for more staff and more salary for those staff. That was the Government's first crisis, would you know? The last one too, I should say - the first and only. It was blackmail. They said, "We must have a higher salary and more staff". Now there are still arguments about resources. I was, frankly, surprised the other day to hear in the corridors someone say, "You are going to get a car, Bill". That was news to me. I do not particularly need a car. I am not sure whether members in other State parliaments and the Federal Parliament get cars, but it seems pressure has been exerted - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Wood, we have limited time. We have only a few minutes left. Please stick to the point.
MR WOOD: I know it is a sensitive issue, but it is the fact of life. There is a matter there about cars and it is the background to all this. We are now looking at resources. Can I say that we really need to take a hard look at the demands that we - and I will put myself into that category - are placing on the Government, on the resources that the ACT has to provide. Let us have a hard look. We cannot retreat, I imagine, to the first day and redo it. Let us have a hard look and think of the financial imposition that we are making on the ACT people and let us think very carefully about that.
MR SPEAKER: Before I call Mr Jensen, let me remind members that this debate will conclude at 3.56 pm.
MR JENSEN (3.45): I will be brief. I wish to move the following amendment to the motion, Mr Speaker:
Paragraph (2), omit "the Abolish Self Government Coalition should be able to use its", substitute "all members in the Assembly should be able to use their".
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