Page 2178 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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But what is the Follett Labor alternative? For "nip and tuck" read "do nothing to confront the problems". The Follett alternative involves a secret Labor agenda of huge tax increases or, alternatively, putting us into crippling debt just like her disgraced Labor colleagues in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. So, what is it to be, Ms Follett - Bankcard or taxes, or both? The people of Canberra, the media and I would be fascinated to know. It is time for you to account for yourself.
The accusations against me and my Government are baseless. The motion before the house is the product of barefaced political opportunism and nothing more. The choice for members is clear: Stability and strength or chaos and equivocation. Let us get on with the real reason for our being here - to guide Canberra, to the best of our abilities and in the community interest, into a sustainable future. I and my Government have done what had to be done. When this charade is over, I will again do what has to be done. If members of this Assembly see that as something deserving of censure, then so be it. But you must look at the alternative and ask yourself seriously: Will they do as well? The evidence suggests not. By any objective measure, I submit, members, you must reject this motion of want of confidence.
MR WOOD (3.05): Mr Speaker, let us have no doubt about this bout. This is the main bout. You can forget the Greiner versus Carr fight, or Hawke versus Keating. The one that matters is Follett versus Kaine. The others were mere preliminary bouts. At least, that is certainly the case with the people of the ACT, because our focus in this debate is on what concerns our citizens. So, for them this is the important fight. The decisions that are made in this chamber today will have, in the future, a significant effect on our community, and Ms Follett has moved this motion on the community's behalf.
This community and this Opposition have no confidence in this intransigent and uncommunicative Government. They are rather familiar words. It is an arrogant Government. It is one that does not listen to the people. To compound that, this Government is incompetent. They have taken one of our treasured possessions, the education system, and inflicted severe damage on it. This is due to their incompetence, of course, and to a number of other factors. They have an ill-defined philosophy on education. There was no background of thought. Therefore, they developed policies that simply, for our circumstances, were wrong. To add to their troubles, and to the troubles they inflicted on our education system, they had a simple lack of knowledge of what our education system was about. The Minister, I believe, came in with preconceived ideas based on past experience, as so many people do, and that was fatal to our system. And, of course, to make bad things worse, there was simple, plain bad management.
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