Page 2463 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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that they are not interested in small business in the Territory. I think there is no more evidence of that contempt for small business than their approach to the small businesses that will be decimated by the closure of the schools by the Liberals.
Mr Humphries: The wall will come tumbling down! We've heard it all before.
MR BERRY: The education Minister should take the time, get out of the kitchen, and talk to some of the small business people in this Territory. He should look closely at what is going on in those premises around the schools that he is going to close; he will destroy them; they will have to close. Some of these people will lose their houses. He ought to take the time to go around and talk to them. I have.
Mr Collaery: Why did you not take any action when you were in the ministry?
MR BERRY: We were not going to close the schools. We were going to balance the budget and maintain services for the people of the ACT, not withdraw them and close schools and demolish the health system, and hand it all over to your big business mates. This is another example of how you operate in terms of protection that is necessary for ordinary working people. In many cases small business people see themselves as ordinary working people. The Liberal Party has never represented ordinary working people in this country, and the Residents Rally has not yet worked out whom it represents, although I am sure that it will be different tomorrow.
Mr Acting Speaker, this issue is extremely important for people in the Territory. I can give you one example of a small self-serve shop which was frequented by some members of this Assembly - a Shop-Rite, I think. It has had a 200 per cent rent increase and was given a couple of weeks' notice.
Mr Moore: One week's notice.
MR BERRY: It was given a month's notice.
Mr Kaine: Get your act together. You don't even know what you are talking about, obviously.
MR BERRY: If it were given a month's notice, it would not be too much. It has no protection by regulation and you, the old bookkeeper, will make sure that it has no protection. These are the people who will suffer under this Residents Rally, Liberal, No Self Government and soon to be Liberal Alliance Government.
Mr Duby: We're bigger than I thought!
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