Page 1544 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 April 1991
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Civic Square Redevelopment Project
MS FOLLETT: My question is also to Mr Kaine. We have heard at quite some length today about all the people that Mr Kaine does not agree with but is not going to do anything about. In relation to Mr Collaery's earlier dorothy dixer, Mr Kaine is looking more and more like the Rally's own glove puppet. But, Mr Kaine, let me ask you a question about someone whom you might agree with: When will you take the advice of the chairman of the Liberal Party Strategy Committee, Mr Bob Winnel? I quote:
Get your act together over the tenders for
section 19.
Do you not agree with him either?
MR KAINE: I thought I already had my act together over the tenders for section 19. As I said, what we saw yesterday was the culmination of a process set in place by your Government. You laid down the ground rules; you determined the process. Had I changed the ground rules at any stage during the evaluation, you would have nailed my hide to the wall, and you know it. Now you want a two-way bet. You would have nailed my hide to the wall if I had attempted to intrude in any way in the process that you started. Now you want to nail my hide because I followed it implicitly.
I do not accept your argument. I did what you set up. You were the one that set the ground rules for that process. You set up the arrangements that made it almost impossible to find anybody to comply. It was your proposal that went forward for consideration - not mine; yours. You wear the consequences. Stop trying to nail it onto my wall. I do not buy it. You carry the consequences of your own actions.
Mr Berry: Bob Winnel does not agree with you.
MR KAINE: Mr Winnel agrees with me that we should have a section 19 program in place right now, but the reason we did not have that was that you lot set the ground rules.
Mr Connolly: Labor's fault when something goes wrong; your credit when something goes right.
MR KAINE: Reference to the Hansard will show that when I was Leader of the Opposition I very often supported actions that the Government took. That was in a situation where you lot had a minority government. I supported you when you did something that was right, and I said so publicly; but all you lot do is criticise. You do not support anything that the Government does, right or wrong; and you think that is being political. It simply shows how shallow you are and that you have not a single philosophical thought in your brain; you just react on a knee-jerk reaction to everything.
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