Page 2829 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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do they get answers? Do they get that basic decency and respect? Are they treated as an intelligent community who can be reasoned with or argued with? No. It is, "Just don't you worry about that". It is the Sir Joh response: "Don't you worry about that. We are going to close the schools. We might tell you about it in the budget". To say that projected savings from school closures is a budgetary measure and cannot be released until the budget is utter nonsense. We have said that repeatedly. The Government just runs away from the questions. The reason for that is pretty obvious. The reason the Government is scared to produce the figures is very simple - three words: Dr Frances Perkins. You are scared to produce the figures because you know there are experts out there in the community who can take your nonsense figures on and demolish them.
Now, I wonder whether Mr Humphries really does have the figures he boasted he has, and whether he circulated them in the joint party rooms, because Mr Collaery repeatedly is saying in public forums that the Rally's view on school closures will not be made clear until the figures justify to their satisfaction that the school closures can be made out.
Well, whether or not Mr Humphries has attempted to justify it to his colleagues in the Rally, he certainly persistently refused to make those figures public. That attitude, we say, is contempt of this parliament and we say that the community will reciprocate that contempt and deal with this Government at the appropriate time. If you are not prepared to bring the community in to even reason with them, to even attempt to justify why you are closing the schools, you deserve the contempt of this community.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: It being 10.00 pm, in accordance with amended standing order 34, the Assembly now stands adjourned until Wednesday, 15 August 1990 at 10.30 am.
Assembly adjourned at 10.00 pm
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