Page 2176 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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hoax that you are perpetrating. Then you make the following announcement: "All those schools and hospitals that the evil Kaine Government has closed I promise to reopen, if only you will let me be Chief Minister".
Mr Kaine has carried through the sad but necessary closure of a small number of schools for exactly the same economic reasons that the Labor Party closed schools in 1988. And Mr Kaine has publicly pledged on several occasions that Acton Peninsula, the site of Royal Canberra Hospital North, will nevertheless be retained for health related purposes. But that is all right; you are raising false hopes in those concerned sectors of the community, so you totally ignore the facts. And, by the time you have successfully used this obfuscation to scramble back into government, it is just too late - I am sorry - to reverse the responsible decisions taken by the previous Government.
But there is a small problem. The cruel and cynical hoax begins to flag. So you whip up some public hysteria by inciting people to break the law. You even manage to get a few people arrested during the illegal occupation of a school building - among them, of course, a couple of union extremists - - -
Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. Suggesting that the Leader of the Opposition caused people to break the law is out of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Chief Minister, I would ask you to withdraw that.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, facts are facts; but, if it hurts them, I will withdraw it. Among those people, of course, are a couple of union extremists, predictably; worse, an Australian Democrat; and even a blind woman and her guide dog. The media, of course, have gone into a feeding frenzy. They cannot believe their luck. Amid chaos and confusion, you effectively obscure the fact that all Canberrans must pay for the consequences of your hoax. "Damn the expense", you say - "Feed the cat another goldfish". And who knows the total extent of the bill anyway? Least of all, the Labor perpetrators of the hoax. Suddenly, shock, horror! There is the possibility that you might grab government much sooner than you expected. "Oh, dear, what do we do now?". You might have to honour your promises about the hospitals and the schools.
What we then witness is an exercise in ACT Labor Party back-pedalling that would rival the Iraqi army fleeing from Kuwait. "Unfortunately", Ms Follett tells the ABC, with a suitably sad sound in her voice, "we can no longer guarantee to keep Royal Canberra Hospital North open if Labor wins office". And, on the schools: "It is no longer that simple", Ms Follett tells the television news. A couple of days later, from the alarming vantage point of having been hoist with her own petard, Ms Follett now announces that, yes, two schools can be reopened. Which
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