Page 4189 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES: I will have standing orders suspended, if you do not shut up.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, members! Let him continue with his speech. I do not want to see us stuffing around forever with cross-chamber banter.
Mr Berry: On a point of order: that is unparliamentary language, Mr Deputy Speaker.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: It probably is. If it offends you, Mr Berry, I will withdraw the words "stuffing around". Carry on, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Wood wants it both ways. In the cases where the ITPA says that the school should be left open, Mr Wood and his colleagues are prepared to say that we should accept the advice of the ITPA. But where the ITPA says that we should close schools, he says, "We do not agree. We do not accept that approach. We do not like the basis on which the ITPA has been given its terms of reference" or "We do not like the narrowness of its inquiry" or "It should have considered more issues".
The Opposition will accept whatever evidence it can find, from whatever source, that schools should stay open, and it will reject whatever advice it gets, from whatever source, that schools should close. The evidence that it brings before this place is totally and completely irrelevant. The evidence points to there being some changes in the planning patterns of Canberra, to which this Government is attuned in the way in which it has proceeded with schools reshaping.
I refer members to the Gungahlin policy and implementation plan which was tabled in January 1989. It refers to the concept of neighbourhood in respect of Gungahlin and says that neighbourhoods will be generally larger than is the case elsewhere in Canberra. Members opposite should note that it sets a very clear pattern for change, of which this Government has been part.
Mr Moore: A pattern for destruction.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Moore interjects, "A pattern for destruction". What did he say about that document? When did he criticise that document? It has been on the table for nearly two years. When did he contribute to the debate that we should not be enlarging existing concepts of neighbourhood, that we should not be changing the basis on which we proceed to say that schools ought to be provided on a neighbourhood basis and that neighbourhood ought to change? When did he say that? He has never said it.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The time for the discussion has now expired.
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