Page 2949 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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MRS GRASSBY (11.46): Mr Speaker - - -
Mr Wood: As I said, they are not very willing, are they?
MRS GRASSBY: No, not to defend their Minister. I do not blame them. Mr Speaker, this Minister has tried to divert attention from the real issue of the anti-education and anti-health attitude of this Minister towards the people of the ACT. This Minister has shown his contempt by the closing of schools and a hospital. In addition, time after time in question time the Opposition cannot get an answer to any questions about the money we are going to save or on anything else about the closure of schools. We ask these questions and never get an answer.
Mrs Nolan: He answers my questions really well, Ellnor.
MRS GRASSBY: Of course he does. He always answers dorothy dixers with a ministerial statement. This Minister has set about destroying the best education system in Australia. The fact that we have a higher retention rate for students remaining on at school than any State in Australia is testimony to this. This is well known. We have always had a good education system, up until this Government came to power. I do not believe that the measure of closing schools, and all the upset it is causing the ACT, is based on budgetary measures. I think it is "sell off the farm". That is all it is about - selling off school sites and hospital sites, the most valuable land in Canberra, for their developer friends. That is what it is all about. It is not saving money for the budget. The Follett Labor Government brought down a balanced budget, in keeping with the need to adjust and to reduce levels of Commonwealth support - and it did so with no thought of closing schools or a hospital. I do not want to hear the Government saying, "The Federal Government did this". I add here that, if Mr and Mrs Humphries Senior did not get married and have little Gary, we would not be speaking on this subject now. So let us live in the present and stop throwing up to our face what the Federal Government did. We are not interested in the past; we are interested in what is happening now. It is here and now that the Government is closing schools - not a year ago, not two years ago, but now. The people in Canberra are upset that the city they love is being changed to suit the Government, which believes it can save money but cannot tell us how. We keep asking, question time after question time, but we still cannot find out.
The Liberals and this Minister are using the budget as an excuse to implement their longstanding policies to destroy public education and public health. This is what the Liberals stand for and, of course, the Alliance has to stand with them. We will get a Residents Rally telling you it has different policies, but this Minister is implementing these policies, not this Government - this Minister in whom everybody has lost confidence. As for him standing for a Senate seat, he can forget that. I think
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