Page 1298 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 16 April 1991
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neighbourhood schools. My party will do everything you want. We will reopen your schools. Don't worry; just give us your vote and we will fix you up. Don't you worry about that".
You have to ask yourself, Mr Speaker, one question though: Where was Mr Connolly when Mr Moore and his colleagues were mounting their legal challenge last year at the crucial stage of government decision on closing the schools in the first place, when the children were actually still in the schools and the teachers were still teaching at the blackboards? Where was Mr Connolly then? He was nowhere to be seen. Mr Connolly had no particular interest in the matter at that time. Mr Connolly was just as happy to let the thing roll by.
We all know that the legal basis for challenging these planning changes is far more shaky than any challenge that could have been mounted to the decision originally to close the schools themselves, and also far less timely. Mr Connolly mounts his challenge for one reason: He wants to show what a great champion of neighbourhood schools he is without actually proving anything, without actually having to reopen or prevent the closure of any neighbourhood schools in this Territory. That is the hypocrisy we have seen from this Labor Party and of which we will see much, much more in the coming months as the election draws nearer.
Mr Speaker, I do not give this claim any credibility. Nobody else watching or listening to this debate does either. I think that the community of the ACT will see through this thin sham and not vote for the party that closed schools two years ago.
MR MOORE (4.48): Mr Humphries is wrong in his last statement, Mr Speaker. The community will see this Government for what it is in terms of schools and they will recognise that both the Labor Party and I are committed to the notion of reopening schools. I have made that commitment publicly; that I will support a government that will do it. Should it occur - and who can look into the future, Mr Speaker? - that the balance of power in some way is in my hands, it would be a condition of going into government that the schools be reopened.
I take another comment by Mr Humphries. I think it is appropriate that I acknowledge the support that Mr Connolly gave me on a number of occasions when I was working on the legal challenge earlier in respect of the schools.
Mr Humphries: What sort of support? Was it financial support? Was he a party to the proceedings?
MR MOORE: Mr Humphries raises the financial situation. Yes, the schools legal action group is still in the process of raising funds to pay for the situation that arose out of that legal challenge. Mr Connolly on a number of occasions
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