Page 4018 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 24 October 1990
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ramifications are very important in this discussion in terms not only of the students but also of the planning of Canberra.
For the Deputy Chief Minister to suggest that I have not followed Rally policy and that there has been cheap political point scoring is absolute nonsense. I know that people from the schools community realise the number of hours that I have put into it. If I were just after cheap points, it would be a matter of knocking out an occasional press release.
Mr Collaery asked how much money we have put into this. I think it is appropriate, in response to his request, for me to declare that I am a litigant in the case to which he referred. That case is not before the Supreme Court. The suggestion that it is before the Supreme Court also needs clarification. It is one of the areas in relation to which Mr Collaery likes to present things a little off from the truth. That case went initially to a hearing in an attempt to get an injunction, in such a way that the Government was not represented so that the litigants were not hit with costs. That was the thinking behind that. The costs could be extreme, and it may have been impossible for them to handle it that way. Following the failure to get that injunction, there was an attempt to establish a time for a hearing, but a time has not been established.
So, to suggest that it is sub judice is, as Mr Collaery knows, absolute nonsense. It is just an attempt by him to weasel his way out of this debate. The Residents Rally knows that it has let down the community once again, with the exception of Dr Hector Kinloch who can feel proud that he has taken appropriate action to attempt to do his bit to prevent this ridiculous school closures move by the Alliance Government which, contrary to what Mr Collaery says, has a group of conservatives as an ideological base.
There are plenty of other ways in which it could save the $2m. Let me give you an example. The Estimates Committee was given information about rental paid by Mr Duby's department which failed last year to present program by program what we spend on rental in the ACT. Overall the rental in the ACT is in the order of $15m or $16m. It has not been able to clarify it exactly because there are bits and pieces all over the place. The first figure that was presented by Mr Duby's department is $14,229,692 per annum.
Mr Duby: What was that for, Michael?
MR MOORE: That was for rental paid out by the ACT Administration. Approximately another million dollars is to be spent by the education department on Macarthur House, and who knows how many other bits and pieces there are. His department says that accounts for approximately 70 per cent, I think it was, of the rentals in the ACT. We can presume that there is a lot more.
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