Page 2290 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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work with good intent and in the hope that this would become a legislative body that had some integrity and was held in some high regard by not only the people of the Territory but also people outside it.
It has been a sad thing that some of the events over the last 2 years have led to people having different views and seeing at least some of us as objects of humour. I do not feel that much of what I have done over the last 2 years was in any way humorous, and I really do object to that. I think that those of us who are returned at the next election will have to work hard again to make sure that that reputation is removed.
Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister talks of consultation; she throws a few barbs and arrows at the Alliance Government on the basis that it has not been consultative. She is a bit ambivalent because, on the other hand, she refers to the planning legislation, which has not yet been tabled. The consultation process is a very difficult process. The Chief Minister will remember that, when she first became Chief Minister and Treasurer 2 years ago, she embarked on a consultative process in order to develop her first budget. I think she would concede now that that consultative process did not work; and I think she would concede that in the end she put into place the same budget that she would have done had she not gone through the consultative process. There is no question about it, because once you open up public business to community consultation you are obliged to listen to what the community has to say.
Mr Connolly: Shock, horror!
MR KAINE: Yes, you are. And it is very interesting, because the party in this chamber that has the most rigid caucus system and the most rigid party organisation behind it is the Labor Party. It claims to go through the consultative process; but, of course, at the end of the day it implements Labor Party policy. So, if you were really honest about this community consultation process, you would come to the Assembly with no party policies at all. You would be here with an open mind that says, "We will go and consult with the community, and when the community has spoken we will implement the wish of the community".
But you do not do that. You do not do it, and you know that you do not do it. You go through the phoney process of community consultation, and in the end you implement Labor Party policy. On the other hand, you say that the community consultation process can perhaps slow things down; and then you say, "And the Alliance Government did not get its planning legislation into place". The reason why the Alliance did not get its planning legislation into place was that we went through three processes - not one - of community consultation.
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