Page 1866 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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will gain no credibility at all from the people of Canberra. Nevertheless, it does draw attention to a few areas in which some of the recommendations can be implemented.
I think it is appropriate to say that the total inadequacy of this Government in money management is that it goes headlong into looking at just money and thinking that money is what we should value. That takes it all out of context. What we should value is our social goals - what we use money for. The difficulty with this Government is that it has not attempted to set up any kind of framework or any kinds of social goals. There is a reasonably easy framework and a reasonably easy way to set the structure in place, although it would require a difficult set of negotiations and openness with the community - the sorts of things in which once upon a time, a long time ago, the Residents Rally members used to be interested but that seems to have long gone out the window, with most of the other things that they once valued. I often ask myself: how can they sleep straight in bed? Then I think they probably cannot sleep at all. It is a shame that Dr Kinloch is not here to hear that statement, but I am sure he will be able to read it in Hansard. He is probably the one in whom I am most disappointed.
There is a possibility that you can go back and, as a starting point only, look at a 1985 NCDC document that set out eight categories in terms of needs assessment planning. They were set out by the NCDC as a social framework, to begin the discussion as to where you should go and how you should set your priorities before you start trying to distribute your money.
Those eight categories were - and these are not in any particular order - income security and employment; physical and mental health; basic material needs, such as housing, transport and the other urban services area; education; protection of the environment; safety of the people; family and personal well-being; and community organisation and development.
Mr Jensen: They are not priorities if they are not in order.
MR MOORE: Mr Jensen interjects: why are they not in priorities? That is the whole point I am trying to make.
Mr Jensen: I said they are not in priorities if they are not in order.
MR MOORE: That is exactly right. The whole point I am trying to make is that they are not yet in priorities. The first job of the Government is to set its priorities and its social goals, not to set economic priorities, because economic priorities should be subject to the social priorities, not the other way round. That is where you are confused; that is where you have it wrong - completely wrong - and that is the problem.
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