Page 2133 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 6 June 1990
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Chief Minister in his usual uninformed and blustering way say that there would be no detriment to anybody by closing down the transfer station. He went on to say that every minor administrative decision is not referred to the public.
Mr Jensen: Where is the quote from, Rosemary?
MS FOLLETT: It is from the Hansard.
The Chief Minister also seemed to think that his decision affected only the people of Ainslie. In response to questions he said, "If you do not happen to live in Ainslie you put your rubbish in your car or your trailer and you deliver it out there". By "out there", of course, he meant that people should go to west Belconnen or Mugga Lane. And he went on:
I do not expect that asking the residents of Ainslie to do the same thing puts them at any disadvantage and they are therefore in any different position to people who live anywhere else in the Territory.
Well, he is wrong about that, as he is about so many other things.
Mr Speaker, thousands of Canberra residents have signed petitions calling for the retention of the transfer station. To say that there is no detriment completely ignores the views of those people and it ignores the views of people who are still writing to me. I have just received a letter from one correspondent this morning. I will quote from her letter because it is a very good letter. She says:
It is such a terrible thing that this Government has done. I am still very angry and there is a lot of other people very angry too. I am very concerned about our Ainslie tip.
She goes on to ask me to do something about it, which is what I am doing. Mr Speaker, the decision that has been made on this matter - - -
Members interjected.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Speaker, please!
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MS FOLLETT: The decision made here completely ignores the fact that residents will now be faced with up to a 40-kilometre round trip to another tip. It completely ignores the needs of the substantial number of elderly people in the north Canberra community. Quite simply, the tips at Belconnen and Mugga Lane are closer to every other part of Canberra than to north Canberra.
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