Page 2136 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 May 1991
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Finally, Mr Speaker, it is a difficult task being a community based party.
Mr Moore: And you failed.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Moore can well laugh. It has been a very difficult and arduous time for my colleagues, Dr Kinloch and Norm Jensen - my brothers, my comrades; the people who stuck with me right through everything we have had to go through. I am very proud to have worked with those two. I am very pleased that Dr Kinloch has announced his intention to rerun for politics.
Mr Berry: A trail of damage and destruction.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, the Labor Party denies me the courtesy and the dignity of making this speech. Well, that is their style. They want to take their pound of flesh now because they have a dismissed Minister before them. So be it. It is not the first knock that any of us have got in life. Never forget that those who work for you can always end up being your boss. I have never forgotten that in life. That is the way I approached those subordinates that I have directed in the last 18 months.
Mr Speaker, the role of a community party is very awkward. I recall saying to Janine Haines on a flight to Adelaide, before she went to Kingston and her nemesis, that she should not give preferences to either of the major parties. The Democrats in Western Australia wanted to give their preferences to Liberals, because of WA Inc., and Janine was trying to win the Labor seat from Gordon Bilney. They had a cross.
The fact of the matter is that the Rally did not give preferences in the last election. We stayed and supported Rosemary Follett's minority Government for seven months and none of our reforms were introduced; nothing was done. The Page school, which lies in rubble today, was not reopened by Rosemary Follett. None of the things we dearly hoped for were done. When we finally went into government to try to get some of our program through - later, when we list it, you will see what we have achieved - we had to make some compromise. That is a fact of life. But compromise does not stretch to destroying those school sites. It does not stretch to bulldozing those beautiful sites and it will not stretch to it now. They are guaranteed. But I trust the school groups know what a huge price it has been in terms of reform, because we have not seen those reforms from the Labor Party or the Liberal Party. There, Mr Speaker, lies the problem of government.
We also went into government with the Liberals in the knowledge that they had a track record, for better or worse, of economic management. We heard a good explanation of that from the Chief Minister a few moments ago and I will not dwell on it. The fact of the matter was that we
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