Page 3639 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 October 1990
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We have had the evidence, we have had the information, we have analysed them, we have made judgments and we have come to some conclusions. The fact that you do not like them is just too bad, because the majority of the community out there does not agree with you and this is why I say you are beating a dead horse. In 12 months time, even those people currently emotionally disturbed and upset about the fact that their own individual school is closing will have accepted the reality; they will be getting on with life; their kids will be going to new schools and having a good time and you lot will still be arguing the toss about the social impact of closing schools. Wake up to yourselves. Learn a few lessons. Get into 1990 and the realities of the ACT that you are living in as well as me. Start being productive, for heaven's sake.
In the schools reshaping program the Government is preserving the things that are good and maintaining them at a level of cost that this community can afford. Can you get that into your brains? Would you just stop and think about that for a minute - at a cost that we can afford. You argue that we should leave all the schools open. You argue that we should not close the hospital. You argue that we should not interfere with anything. We would not make one single change if we listened to you in the Opposition. You tell me how we balance the budget and where the money comes from to do that.
Ms Follett: You had a surplus last year; you know that.
MR KAINE: You know, and, Rosemary Follett, you know if anybody knows, that the sums do not add up. One of the problems last year was that you would not face up to that issue.
Ms Follett: You had a surplus on my budget. What are you talking about?
MR KAINE: We did not have a surplus on the budget when you produced it, and you know it. There was no surplus on your budget when you produced it, and when we took government Mr Berry, the world's greatest manager, was $7m in the red running his hospitals. You talk about financial management and financial responsibility. You do not know when there is a deficit - that is your problem - and that applies to you, former Treasurer and former Chief Minister. This is one of the reasons why you will never again be Treasurer or Chief Minister; the people out there who paid the taxes to support you and your extravagances know full well that you do not understand it.
Mr Connolly: It is Rosemary's extravagance, is it?
MR KAINE: Exactly. It is extravagant to keep 13,000 vacant places in our public schools - 13,000, Mr Connolly. You convert that into dollars and cents. You might be an
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