Page 3640 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 16 October 1990
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up-and-coming yuppie with plenty of money to spend, but there are a lot of people in this city who are not in that happy category. They do not have a lot of money to spend and they cannot afford to pay more taxes than they should be asked to pay, and they are going to object to you people taxing them to keep those 13,000 vacant places in those schools.
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I suspect that this debate was to focus on the social impact. I have not heard the Chief Minister mention one item in relation to the social impact.
MR SPEAKER: Order! That is - - -
MR KAINE: You obviously did not listen, because I have been talking about social issues and I pointed out what the terms of reference are for Mr Hugh Hudson - social issues.
Mr Berry: Is he running the place now?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Berry!
MR KAINE: You do not want to hear. You are trying to run the place; but you are a bit of a wimp, so you are never likely to.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Chief Minister, please! You were speaking when I said to Mr Berry that this was not a valid point of order. Please proceed.
MR KAINE: Correct, Mr Speaker; I am glad you support it. The people on the other side do not even want to read the Canberra Times. In the editorial this morning, the Canberra Times pointed out, rightly, that it is not the responsibility of the Minister for Education to subsidise the shopping centres in our suburbs. Your argument is that we should not close a school because that is going to have an impact on the local shopping centre. What absolute rubbish!
I do not know where you get your economics from. I do not know where you get your approach to social issues from. It is obviously buried deep and you have dug it out from some cobweb encrusted Labor Party policy of the 1930s. That is the only conclusion that I can come to. Even Mr McCann, who was hired by the Save our Schools group to put its case for it, acknowledges that to date there is no discernible loss in value to residential areas where schools have closed already. Where is the social impact that you are talking about?
Mr Moore: Real estate values - that is your measure of social impact.
MR KAINE: I think that, if the houses of those people living out there had lost value because of this, they would be saying that there is a social impact all right, because it affects their standard of living.
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