Page 3943 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
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The seats that that decision has cost them will, of course, deprive them of government in February of next year. They know in their heart of hearts that they have committed a serious blunder in doing what they did a few months ago.
Mr Kaine referred to the consultation hoax. That goes without saying. The consultation hoax, of course, is the image or myth being perpetrated every day by this Government that somehow it is a caring and consultative government. We know full well that this Government does not care to consult with anybody that it does not intend to listen to. I know also that, in the experience of some community groups, the consultation has been an extremely cruel and sadistic hoax. For example, non-government school parents were told that they would be consulted about changes in education budgeting.
Mr Berry: No, no. You are talking about the people from the highly funded schools.
MR HUMPHRIES: We hear "No, no" coming from the Deputy Chief Minister. Apparently - - -
Mr Berry: The very comfortable schools, the richest schools.
MR HUMPHRIES: I think we are seeing now that only some schools have the privilege of consultation.
Mr Berry: No, they are the ones that you are talking about.
MR HUMPHRIES: Only some schools have the privilege of consultation. Apparently, there are different classes of citizen in the ACT - some with whom consultation will be engaged in and others with whom no consultation will be engaged in. That is the standard of this Government.
Mr Kaine: There will be $70,000 worth, with the Trades and Labour Council.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is right. Mr Kaine reminds me that, of course, in the case of some citizens of this Territory, you actually have to pay them to provide for consultation; you have to actually butter them up with a few dollars to produce some effort at consultation. Of course, as in other cases when one pays someone to do things, one gets the sorts of things one expects. Of course, one gets what one pays for. I think we can expect this Government to continue with this hoax of pretending that it is consulting when in fact it has no intention of listening to anybody with whom it disagrees.
Let us go to our old favourite of health. Of course, this Government is already - in the short space of three months - in the most almighty shemozzle about health that could possibly be imagined. Let us just listen to some of the things that Mr Berry had to say about the former
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