Page 664 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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factionalisation, which regrettably the other side of the house cannot tout around, is a measure of the team that this community - - -
Mr Wood: You have never seen any gaps across this side.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Wood, I have seen your Labor Party unable to agree on which lift to get into. The true test is that we need to present the Canberra people with a stable, reputable government, and the people of Canberra have that. We have developed a good working relationship with the public administration, the excellent public service that we have. We have developed a good working relationship with other elements in the community - the community groups and the many and varied other elements in the community, and I include among them the business community. That is evident, and I do not believe that the Leader of the Opposition or any others who will speak on this motion is in a position to deny it. We have worked very hard with those groups. We are liaising effectively. In government one will always receive criticism. I remember saying to Graham Richardson, as we both got up at the Raiders game the other evening, "Which one of us are they going to shoot?" I doubt that people want to hear a politician before an event of that nature.
That brings me to another element, though I exclude Graham Richardson from this. We have had eight years of Labor neglect in the Territory, and a lot of the exhausting round that we are going through here relates to all those years of neglect of the problems and issues facing the Territory. The revelation today of the little bit of cute asset stripping over Gowrie hostel is just one aspect. We have a whole range of issues. But it really boils down to the real Labor ethic about government.
Admittedly, we came suddenly into government, and, surprisingly, it was presumably before the documents could be put in the wind tunnel and blown away. We came upon arrangements for an office in Tuggeranong, in relation to which the department of my colleague Mr Duby found itself at huge expense for what amounted to a suite for a Minister of the Labor Government. I think in the region of $180,000 was set aside for a suite, and I think Mr Stefaniak, through some quirk of the post, received a bill for an $11,000 table and chair suite for Mr Whalan's proposed other office.
Is that the approach of a responsible government? It is really disgraceful when those things occur. Did we not appear reasonable in not running that issue at the time and further bringing government into disrepute? We have let that issue come out in a reasoned and slow fashion so that we would not have the mob marching on us and throwing us all out due to the profligate activities of the Follett-Whalan Government. If you want to talk about confidence of the people, who got the crowds outside here demonstrating day after day? It was the
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