Page 1872 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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open it for debate and say that we had a parlous position, that schools, on the advice available to him, had empty places. He invited all comers to join the debate. You could not have the decency to join that debate in any fashion other than to destroy and discredit his attempt to open a debate. It is a non-consultative process.
In the days after it, we saw the Leader of the Opposition down here signing stacks of roneoed letters. I saw some of them: "Dear Community Friend, we are here to guard your interests. We are here to look after you against the dreadful Mr Humphries". This is the maturity of the response from a team that was given a chance for seven months and could not, in the Rally's eyes - nor in Mr Duby's eyes - carry the ball.
You have heard acknowledgment of Mr Duby's skills. I have watched him also in Cabinet and at meetings. He is very shrewd, very sharp, good with figures, and as good as any backbencher or any Minister I have met, and I have met many in Canberra. You have joined a nasty process in this town of denigrating him whenever you could. I think it ill-becomes some of the newer members of the Assembly, who should not carry any of the bitterness of the defeat last year to the Assembly.
I am sure the debate will be properly and productively assisted not by the Labor team in this Assembly but by reasonable people in the Labor Party and the union movement who will join those corporatised boards, as they have indicated already, and assist us to give the workers a say. With the corporatisation of the Mitchell laundry, how on earth could this party be objecting to having a better say in the running of a process that affects the workers' interests? No, they do not want to have it. It is not a privatisation regime. It is the corporatisation of a laundry. But, no, they have to go on air and say the "new right" is alive, the Rally has been subverted, and this nonsense.
It may take a few months to put down, but God help you all when the community wakes up to how bereft you are of any sense of working together in the Assembly for the good of the Territory. They will wake up, I have no doubt, because ironically - and I am pleased to pass this remark over the empty front bench to Mr Connolly - someone whom he probably greatly admires, who has recently retired from Federal politics, a great and honest statesman, made very clear to me in personal conversations that difficult decisions have to be faced quickly because the people need time to adjust to the good sense of them. That was good advice.
I am sustained in that, Mr Speaker, when I look at the competent handling of these issues by the Chief Minister. No-one can deny, when you see him on the television or hear him on the air, that we have a solid hand at the tiller. It has been acknowledged, in any event, by members on the other side, and certainly was acknowledged gracefully by Mr
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