Page 2825 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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Mr Jensen: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I have listened very intently to the debate today. I refer you, Mr Acting Speaker, to page 554 of the House of Representatives Practice in relation to the adjournment debate. There will be ample time for this matter to be brought up in the normal course of debate. What the members are doing, Mr Acting Speaker, is abusing the normal practices in relation to the adjournment debate.
MR WOOD: You want to be a censor, do you? It is not a point of order; it is a waste of time, as he intended it to be.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Mr Wood, if you would be quiet until I rule.
MR WOOD: There is nothing to rule, for God's sake.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Well just be quiet, Mr Wood, while I do. In relation to that point of order, during the adjournment debate I think members can speak on anything. I think that is quite correct. The adjournment debate does, though, go for only half an hour. Continue, Mr Wood.
MR WOOD: Mr Jensen has just proved the point I made that the people on that side of the house simply do not want a debate and he tried to stall it. He has just taken a minute of my time to do it. The Minister made a snap decision in March, and you know that. You know he made a snap decision - you were shocked when you heard it - to close 15 to 25 schools, just like that. He was presented with a plan, it suited his political ideology and he said, "Great, we will run with it". There was no planning behind it - nothing behind it at all. He had no information to justify such a drastic cutting of education services in this city. You mob went along with him. Shame on you. And now you are regretting it - or some of you are regretting it. You wish he had never walked into your room upstairs, the joint party room, with that crazy idea in the papers he brought in. You are regretting it, but you will not come out publicly and say that and you will not cross the floor tomorrow and you will not stand up and say what you really think. You just wish it would go away. I can tell you it will not go away. It is going to haunt you for your very short political careers. It is not going to go away.
The Minister had no evidence at all to support the closure of 15 to 25 schools, none at all. There is not one day in this chamber that he stood up and gave point by point his evidence. All you have said is, "We have got to save money".
Mr Humphries: You will get that in the budget. That is your right - and nothing else.
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