Page 329 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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may now follow could be taken up by the Social Policy Committee. So, Mr Collaery, as you respond, as I expect you will do in a moment, you might bear this in mind and leave the future open for consultation between you and your colleagues on that side of the house and Rosemary Follett on this side of the house.
I believe the proposal she has made is very sensible and sincere. Judging by the sentiments that people on your side have expressed today, I am sure that you agree with the thoughts in the proposal. Therefore, you may also go down the path of agreeing with her proposal. So, I ask after today, talk to Rosemary Follett and I think this parliament will then embark on a very sensible exercise.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (4.53): In the few moments available to me I would like to rise to the challenge on behalf of the Alliance Government, and challenge it is. I also welcome the degree of consensus in this area and it is needed, but to go with consensus must go the moderation of viewpoints that will produce it. I accept that the Leader of the Opposition is genuine in her wish to secure a community agreement or consensus and that she proposes to approach each of the party leaders. But let me say, and I have to be absolutely honest - I have a lifestyle of calling a spade a spade - that I am dealing at the moment with a number of community groups, all working in areas dealing with social justice and social equity and the concepts thereon. All these groups have recently received a letter, dated 14 February 1990, from the Leader of the Opposition. Among other things, it asks them to join a public campaign to stop the asset sales program of Mr Kaine and it says that Mr Kaine is:
... anxious to rush headlong into selling parts of our hospital system, our schools, our swimming pools, our public transport system -
Then she goes on, regrettably, because I did make a call for moderation on this point only a week or two ago, to mention public housing. The letter is signed, "Rosemary Follett" and it says:
P.S. Please contact Grant Hehir ... in my office to organise a suitable time as soon as convenient.
I will rise to the challenge of accepting a community consensus arrangement across the party leaders, but I also ask the Leader of the Opposition to desist from cynical exercises that result in a great number of anxious phone calls to my office, and no doubt the offices of some of my colleagues, by people who believe the public housing that they occupy is to be sold out from underneath them. I must say I accept the offerings of the Opposition here today but I return the challenge. I tell Opposition members that we will come to consensus if they will come to moderation. They must realise that if they are genuine about this move to centralise the socially just instincts of this Assembly
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