Page 2943 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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This Liberal Government unfortunately is not prepared to allow people to have their opinions. That is the problem; they are not prepared to express their opinions. There was a time, of course, when the Residents Rally was in fact a community-responsive group, but that has long since gone. At that stage - - -
Mr Duby: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker - relevance.
MR MOORE: Yes, okay. Thank you. The thing about opinions and people expressing their opinions is that Mr Humphries has not been prepared to allow people to discuss the possible alternatives. He always says, "Provide me with alternatives and we might not close schools". But that is not the way you start in a consultation. So if you really want to be able to consult with people you have to let them express their opinions. Even now, the Higgins people sitting in this gallery who were wearing their various T-shirts have had an instruction from the Speaker, I understand, asking them not to wear those T-shirts - not to wear an article of clothing in the gallery that says H-I-G-G-I-N-S, Higgins. I think it is a bit unfortunate. When people want to express their opinion by wearing an article of clothing it should be reasonable for them to do so. I would like to express my support for the Higgins School by wearing an H for Higgins as I complete this speech.
Mr Humphries: It could be H for Humphries.
MR MOORE: Mr Humphries interjects that it is actually an H for Humphries. If anything, it is close to an H for hate for Humphries, and I can quite accept that. I think it is quite important that we allow people to have their say. Earlier Mr Collaery and Mr Jensen interjected, saying, "Mr Moore wrote the $7.2m into a Residents Rally press release, in effect making it part of Rally policy". I am very proud of that, and it was. A couple of us managed to swing in the executive of the Residents Rally, prior to the election, the notion that the Rally would increase funding to education from the money that would be raised in a series of different ways, not the least of which was from tightening up on the leasehold system. But, of course, the Rally backed away from tightening up on the leasehold system and threw away that money that could have been used on education and on keeping these schools open.
Mr Collaery: Did not you read today's paper?
MR MOORE: I am glad Mr Collaery brings that up, because in fact the recommendations that he is making, first of all giving away what they are going to do, give the people involved the chance to - in fact I will get onto that in another debate because I might be accused of irrelevance.
What this Minister has failed to do - and this is the reason he needs to be censured - is to look at alternative
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