Page 2573 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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communique. Through you, Mr Speaker, I would ask Ms Follett to put more attention into those environmental issues as this great communique is worked through in detail.
Mr Speaker, I want to come back to the question of enforcement post-November of the financial arrangements so that the money is spent on the people who most deserve it. We all know, as politicians, how hard it is to tell an entrenched church-related welfare group that they cannot have money. It is very difficult. I share fears held by others that in some States, given the black-and-white-ball set that runs them, the money will go to well-meaning, disconnected charitable groups. Some of them have left the footpath and have been off the footpath for many years. I will not go into names. They are not on the footpath and I fear that the money, under this untied arrangement, will not get through to the footpath. I do ask the Chief Minister to maintain a vigilant approach to those issues.
Mr Speaker, the enforcement side is not a matter of legal enforcement. I know that the Chief Minister will probably sign enforceable agreements on disability services in November; but you know as well as I know, members, that they are enforceable politically, not legally. The fact is that when you are about to prosecute a State or an instrumentality, if you can, under some complex constitutional issues that Mr Connolly knows well about, you get the situation that we need a favour from a State; the Commonwealth needs a favour or another State needs a favour. So, Mrs Kirner might trade off her relentless disagreement with us on electricity for our not joining a vote to condemn them for something. That is how it all works. I fear for the disadvantaged under the untying of grants. (Extension of time granted)
I thank members. Mr Speaker, I sound that warning. I want to sound it from a non-ideological point of view and I want to support the Chief Minister in her very cautious approach to the untying of grants. Mr Speaker, the issue is alive in this city. It is going to come up around November and it would be good if it could not be a divisive issue at the election period. It is a time when once again the nation will be looking at our antics. The nation may well see us at issue with the Commonwealth and it may well result in renewed criticism from all those States who, for their own States rightist reasons, want to say that we do not know what we are talking about; we are juniors in the league and we have got it all wrong under untied grants. I can just see that prejudice coming out again.
Mr Speaker, not all of us in the Territory are alone. I went to a social welfare Ministers meeting in Adelaide in March and clearly there was an unstated discomfort among welfare Ministers, of whatever political persuasion, about the untying circuit. That discomfort surfaced in public statements by Senator Richardson and resulted in an extraordinary letter to the Prime Minister by Mr Bannon. I
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