Page 2775 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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contracts to it and did not take any action to ensure that the management responsibilities of that company were improved and the workers and subcontractors who worked for the company had their futures protected. They took no care at all.
There has been no care and no responsibility taken by this Government. You just cannot keep walking away from your responsibility in the ACT the way that you have in the past, blaming it on everybody else. The fact of the matter is, when you took the reins you took the responsibility; you have to wear it. If you continue to avoid it, we will continue to raise it as we have done now to ensure that the people of Canberra are aware, if they are not already aware, that this is an incompetent government.
Mr Acting Speaker, the Minister opposite - sometimes called the most hated man in Canberra - has been described here today as being stupid. I think it has been successfully demonstrated that his stupidity has flowed on into his management of the contracting out of his department. There is great difficulty there, Mr Acting Speaker. There has been no indication from this Minister opposite that there will be any change in the contracting arrangements within his department in order to improve the situation in the workplace. If there is no indication that this Minister will seek to improve the performance of his department in this area then I fear that the operations of this Assembly will be in for more scorn from the people of Canberra because of his behaviour.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (4.03): Mr Acting Speaker, I do not have much to say, other than to say that this matter is partly before a civil court and it ill behoves anyone in this Assembly to be bringing forward issues of fact and drawing conclusions on them in advance of those which may be found in that court process. I believe that some of the comments here have probably gone close and at times surpassed those matters.
The other issue I want to raise briefly is the fact that we are all here in this Assembly to protect the revenue of the Territory and it ill behoves an opposition to damage or decrease a negotiating position of the Government when it is in the position of seeking to renegotiate matters, to ameliorate damages and to otherwise attend to arrangements with subcontractors. The very danger of putting this matter of public importance forward today is that views may be settled in a negotiating process which is under way at the moment. In a consultative phase, the Opposition may well have thought to have consulted with the Government before bringing forward this matter of public importance. For the information of members, there were matters my colleague, the Minister for Finance, could have raised today but he could not. He is strictured from that - - -
Mr Berry: You are starting to sound as if you are on our side.
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