Page 2553 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 8 August 1990
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MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition), by leave: I do not think that the Chief Minister was listening to my speech, Mr Acting Speaker. I very much appreciate his offer that this Bill be considered an urgent Bill, but if he was listening while I was introducing the Bill he would have heard me say - and I will repeat it - that I expect the Bill will lie on the table for the next week.
Mr Kaine: Of course you did because you do not want to debate it.
A member: You have had two months to talk about it.
MS FOLLETT: Mr Acting Speaker, please call this rabble to order.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Please calm down members. Continue, Ms Follett.
MS FOLLETT: This week gives the people of Canberra some time to bring home to the members of the Government what their decision on schools will mean. That was my purpose in introducing the Bill this week - to allow a week's consideration before it was brought on for debate next week. As members opposite full well know, the Council of Parents and Citizens of the ACT is expecting this Bill to be debated next Wednesday. Of course, members opposite want the matter dealt with today so that they can avoid a further week's pain and embarrassment which the community will undoubtedly cause them during the further debate on this Bill. They know as well as I do that the Canberra community holds them in utter contempt for their actions on school closures and, in particular, holds members of the Residents Rally and the so-called independent members in utter disdain for their total duplicity on this matter.
Mr Acting Speaker, I am giving the members opposite another week in which to discover their consciences, if that is not an impossible task for them, and to actually reflect the community opinion.
As I said, I do appreciate the Chief Minister's offer, but it was never my intention, nor was it the intention of the community groups involved in this issue, that the matter should be guillotined today by the Government which quite clearly has the numbers here.
Mr Kaine: You do not want to debate it?
MS FOLLETT: I am delighted to debate it. We debated it at length yesterday. The matter will be debated today, tomorrow and all through next week as well. What this move by the Government is all about is avoiding a further exposure of its utter duplicity on the whole issue. It is squibbing on the issue. It is not game to leave Carmel Maher and Hector Kinloch in the firing line another week. That is what it is all about. As I said, I do appreciate the Chief Minister's gracious offer, but I will decline it.
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