Page 2017 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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MR BERRY: You should be embarrassed about walking out on such an important issue.
The rally was called to protest against their plans for the ACT, but this Government did nothing, not a thing. It would not even talk to the people affected by its decisions - the workers in the ACT. It was not even interested. You did not make one attempt, Mr Kaine, to negotiate an industrial settlement when massive disruption was first threatened as a result of the Government's action.
Is this another reason, Mr Chief Minister, to consider sacking Mr Duby? He is the Minister responsible for industrial relations. He could not even drag himself out of his chair long enough to attempt to negotiate a settlement which would prevent the massive disruption which occurred as a result of this morning's rally. What it boiled down to was that this Government has adopted the antagonistic approach one can expect from Liberals. It intends to do nothing about the improvement of industrial relations in this Territory; in fact it would provoke them to promote its own ends.
What it boils down to is that this mob are going to spend all the time between now and the next election in their bunker. They will never go out to see the effects of their drastic cuts and answer the cries from the people. There was some talk about closing down the workshop over at Kingston, and for the first time I heard reported through the media that the Chief Minister had bothered to go over and have a look at what he was going to do.
This is a government of ineptitude. The Minister for Finance and Urban Services, Mr Duby, the one who has been in the headlines lately, said again on radio today that none of the recommendations had yet been implemented. This is another case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. On 1 June the Chief Minister said that decisions had been made on only a few of the board's recommendations. This is just another example of the shonky way this Government operates, another example of the shonkies opposite.
They are a bunch of shonkies, Mr Speaker. On the one hand you have got a so-called senior Minister, whose credibility has been severely battered in recent times, who has said that none of the recommendations have been implemented, and the Chief Minister says some of them have. I saw several thousand people out at the rally this morning and I tell you what, Mr Kaine, it was a good thing that you did not turn up there because you would have been embarrassed too.
The same Minister - I refer to Mr Duby - said on radio yesterday that his experience with convictions for drink-driving offences equipped him better for the job as Minister responsible for road safety in the ACT.
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