Page 1294 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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It is clear that this is a politically-driven decision to fast track the sell-off in order to try to get the Government out of the political bind, the political bind being that it does not want to go to the people in a situation where the Labor Party is able to make good on its clear promise that it will reopen these schools if the schools remain. It is doing what it has done to the hospitals. It is certainly trying to ensure that the next Health Minister, Mr Berry, will have no option in relation to hospitals because it is ripping the guts out of the hospital system. It is trying to ensure that the same thing will happen to the schools. All it has to do is delay the process.
Well, if the Government will not delay the process, we will do the best that we can to delay the process for it. We will fight this by way of legal challenge. We will fight this politically in this chamber. We will encourage community opposition, and there will be vast community opposition, particularly in relation to the Lyons and Cook communities who seem to be the most committed to demanding that their schools remain. At the end of the day it will be fought in this Assembly. As the Chief Minister said, and he is quite correct in this, when these decisions are finally taken, when this Government decides in its joint party room to flog off these sites and to approve the planning variation to allow town houses to be developed, each variation will be subject to disallowance. And it is town houses that we are talking about.
We hear lots of pious statements about community facilities and varying community leases, but we see that medium density residential is an appropriate potential use. That phrase recurs in each of the five planning variations - medium density residential, town houses. That is what this is all about. When the Government has made that decision, each of the variations to plans will have to be tabled in this Assembly and will be subject to disallowance. When that happens you three Residents Rally members will have to vote to flog off the schools or to stay true to your policy. That will be an interesting and testing time. We will see whether you will, at last, do the decent thing and stick to your policy or commit the final sell-out.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (4.38): I can see that this is a somewhat last minute and ad hoc MPI put forward by the Opposition. It was written out, obviously in haste at the last minute, to make sure that it got on the notice paper. Obviously they sat around thinking, "Goodness, what are we going to put on for an MPI? Let us do the schools again. That is good for a run". And so they have. But I am still surprised that they think there is any mileage left in that. Mr Connolly has certainly found some mileage by creating a new avenue, a new vista on this matter, with new horizons as far as hypocrisy is concerned. I have to say that I am not surprised by any of this and I fully expect it, particularly in the lead-up to the next ACT election.
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