Page 196 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (11.43): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I am happy to speak if those opposite are really concerned about hearing from the Government. I must say that the Government has been listening and waiting for some new arguments in this debate. People will recall that the same arguments have been trotted out endlessly, ad nauseam, over the last few months; without any conviction, I might say, and, because of the paltriness of those arguments, without any capacity to change anyone's opinion on this side, and that remains the case. However, once more unto the breach - for the sake of those people opposite, I am happy to go through the Government's position on these matters once again.
Mr Berry: Are you going to read that excellent publication into the transcript?
MR HUMPHRIES: I am certainly going to read from this publication, and I certainly will not be describing it as excellent.
Mr Berry: I will bet that you will tell us that you were not in France all that time, you were somewhere else as well.
MR HUMPHRIES: I will certainly be telling you that, amongst other things, because that is true.
Mr Speaker, those opposite have accused the Government, and continue to accuse the Government, of being the henchmen - the engineers - of conflict in education. They unequivocally and without hesitation blame the Government for all the conflict which has occurred in the education system.
Let me say at once that I very much regret the conflict that has occurred in education over the last few months. I very much regret that, and I would much rather that it had not occurred; but I would remind those opposite that this is not the first government to encounter conflict in education. This is not the first government to witness massive demonstrations out the front of this Assembly as a result of its policies in education. Ms Follett's Government was in exactly the same position during 1989 - need I remind her. This is not the first government which will be accused of taking hard decisions when hard decisions are necessary, because, Mr Speaker, anybody who doubts that hard decisions are necessary in education, in health, in every other part of this Government's and this Territory's financial position, is deceiving himself or herself.
I think the charge that we have a confrontationist style, that we are unwilling to consult and unwilling to discuss issues, needs to be addressed very clearly. Can I remind people in this place of the unprecedented level of discussion and consultation that went on over this issue over the last few months, since May of last year in
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