Page 193 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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MR KAINE: Did we not, Mr Lamont, head off industrial disputation because you and I, and other trades union secretaries, met in my office and discussed the issues?
Mr Lamont: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There has been an interjection across the floor which casts great doubt about my own honesty and I seek to have it withdrawn.
Mr Cornwell: I withdraw, Madam Speaker.
Mr Lamont: I would have presumed, Madam Speaker, that an apology would have been appropriate at the same time.
MR KAINE: I would add, Madam Speaker, that I in no way am impugning Mr Lamont's integrity, because he and I did discuss the issue. In fact, the trade unions so valued my input that they even borrowed my notes one time. They were so impressed with my input to the debate, which then led to very satisfactory outcomes for everybody concerned, that they borrowed my notes, because they were so excellent. We did talk to the trade unions and we had very good relationships with them. Some trade union secretaries, who shall remain nameless, even used to come into my office of a Friday afternoon and have a drink with me. That is the way you do business with the trade unions. You do not kick them in the head. We are not trying to kick the trade unions in the head; we are trying to kick this inept Government in the head. They are the people that let the thing boil up to the point where it became an industrial dispute and became a strike.
If Mr Connolly for one moment had appreciated and understood the problems that the drivers out there were having, we would never have had the strike. There would never have been these unnecessary costs imposed upon the community. It would have been all sorted out if it had been my Government. Mr Lamont and I would have sorted it out on the fifth floor. The drivers would have been happy, the passengers would have had the vehicles there, the schoolkids would have been able to go to school, and there would not have been millions of cars blocking all the freeways. This is a worthwhile debate. It was a subject that needed airing.
In concluding I would like to talk about people making claims about what happened when I was Chief Minister or when I was something else. I would just like to point out the lag. When I was Chief Minister, everything that happened during my regime did not start the day that I became Chief Minister. I inherited the results of what had happened before that. There is always about a 12 months' lag. During the 1991 period, the year after we had a Labor Government, we got all the clag. So, there was a deterioration in things. Along came a Labor Government in 1991 and they inherited all the good things that were done during the Alliance Government. They started to take effect.
I will quote you some figures from ACTION's report. I am sure that this is an authoritative report. It notes that expenditures increased significantly during the period 1987-88 to 1991. In the year 1989-90 the Government contribution was only $26.2m. In 1990-91 it was $45.6m. That was not because of anything I had done. That was because of what I inherited from the previous Labor Government. The cost of running ACTION buses almost doubled from 1989-90
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