Page 6041 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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hearts, in this bush capital, we want to see a casino. The short-term effect will be to reduce the job opportunities for youngsters in the club industry. The short-term effect will be to reduce the social justice of this town, as people gamble to try to make that which they cannot get under the unfair system.
The crying shame of it is that the Labor Party has put its signature to it. That is the thing that, coming from Wollongong, I am appalled about most of all: As a Labor Party you have put your name to a Liberal ethic. It is okay for the workers to have a gamble; it is not okay for you to give a foreign consortium a chance to siphon off our dollars through a collateral deed that you know has already been executed to take the money out through Singapore. It is a bad day for this capital. Just like the workers in Wollongong who stopped the pig iron going out in 1939 and who today stand alone in this country against the ACTU on exports to Indonesia, there is a lone voice. We will stay a lone voice. Shame on you!
MADAM TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your time has expired, Mr Collaery.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (3.53): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, it may stay a lone voice, but it will not be a consistent one. One of the things that have amazed me today has been the attack on this proposal by Mr Collaery. One should not be surprised at some of the changes of attitude of the Rally. They have developed a great reputation for an ability to change course.
I recall quite vividly that, during the interminable discussions that we had nearly three years ago, just ahead of the formation of the first Follett Government, Mr Collaery, on behalf of the Residents Rally, was saying, "We will agree to a casino so long as it is not on section 19 or in the Parliamentary Triangle". I do not know whether that was a part of any discussions that the Liberal Party might also have had.
Mr Kaine: It sounds familiar.
MR WOOD: It sounds familiar. So, at that time it was perfectly acceptable to the Rally that the casino be on a site such as that of the Parkroyal, where it is about to go. I do not know whether Mr Collaery made a feature of that in the last two years - I do not keep a record of public statements made by people - but certainly the clear case at that time was that the Rally had no objections to it; they were prepared to accept it.
I think it is rather cynical now for Mr Collaery, on behalf of the Rally, to stand up and say, "We will not have a casino anywhere in any circumstance". It is a typical change of view by the Rally, to suit their own perceptions of how they should go. I indicate that this is a repeated
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