Page 2033 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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The other planned city that I am familiar with is Adelaide. That is comparable because, like Canberra, it was planned by a visionary, Colonel Light, in 1836 and it was planned to include extensive areas of urban green space, the parkland belt surrounding the city. Many times in the 150-odd years that Adelaide has been in existence as a city, short-sighted local politicians have suggested selling off areas of that urban green space. There have always been pressing economic arguments for doing that but they have always been defeated. Today's generation of Adelaide's residents are grateful for that, just as the next generation of Canberra residents will be grateful to this Labor Opposition for stopping your plans to flog off urban green spaces in Canberra.
The same thing is happening in Sydney in Centennial Park. It struck me how visionary that development was and how, so often over the years when that inner urban area of Sydney was regarded as a mere slum and worthless, it would have been so easy for those lands to have been sold off by local and State politicians for a quick buck or a quick quid. They did not, and there has been no suggestion of doing that until Greiner started talking about selling Moore Park and the showground areas. Those proposals are being vigorously resisted by the Sydney community, just as the Canberra community will continue to resist the proposals to sell off urban spaces around the Canberra schools.
Future generations will never forgive the present batch of short-sighted politicians if they destroy this. Rally members in particular must stand up and defend this attack on the fabric of society. As we said the other day, the Rally policy is clearly committed to the neighbourhood schools concept, and I quote from that commitment:
No school should close until all the alternatives have been considered and the school community has an opportunity to discuss the proposal and make recommendations.
That is irreconcilable with Mr Humphries' proposal that, once the criteria are announced, schools will close; there will be no consultation. The fine ideology in this pink booklet, the Rally policy, has faded away. Like the Cheshire cat, all that is left is the pink booklet and - dare I suggest it - the pink in Mr Collaery's tie.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (4.48): Mr Deputy Speaker, the Opposition continues its frantic attempt to terrify the community out there by raising these spectres of selling off the urban green space. They have got nothing constructive to contribute, but they say, "Let us terrorise the people and let us beat up this issue of what this Government might be going to do". This was Mr Connolly's first attempt at it. He did a good job, but he failed.
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