Page 616 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 20 May 1992
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Mr Humphries: Yes, it was; 7 August 1991. You were Minister then.
MR WOOD: I am sorry.
Mr Humphries: It was 7 August 1991.
MR WOOD: I do not think Mr Russell has told you, or the community, or the media the whole story. Let me put it on the record. After discussions over a period, my advice is that the first letter that put on paper what the stocking rate of this area was to be was written under the authority, if not the signature, of one of your ministerial colleagues on 24 May 1991. I have carried on, Mr Humphries, the policy of the Alliance Government.
Mr Humphries: Then you should have considered whether it was appropriate.
MR WOOD: I certainly did consider that it was appropriate. Mr Russell instantly complained about that. It was not long after that that the Government was changed and he re-raised the issue very strongly. I did reconsider it and I agreed with the policy that your Government had allowed to be implemented. I agreed with it. You were right. You were right then and I am right now. That is the story of it. I will track down that letter for you. But that is the case. Let us forget that. Let us get back to the core of this. Mr Russell is an honourable and good citizen. Governments - yours and ours and earlier Federal governments - have gone out of their way to look after him. Canberra has been good to him; he has been good for Canberra. Let that continue.
MRS CARNELL (11.01): I commend Mr Humphries's motion on this issue; but I would like to address it from possibly a different perspective, that of a resident of the area and a resident with young children in the area. Mr Russell is, without doubt, an identity. Mr Wood made a comment earlier about the needs and wants of Canberrans and I can promise you that in the Red Hill, Narrabundah and Garran area the needs and wants of Canberrans are to keep Charlie Russell's cattle and cows and calves on Red Hill, and to keep them in numbers that make it viable for Mr Russell to continue to run them. I think that is an area that we really have to look at.
Seasons change. There are good years; there are bad years. There are years when lots of calves are born and other years when that does not happen. What has happened currently to Charlie Russell is that he has been so engulfed by bureaucratic garbage that he does not know where he is heading. He does not understand - he believes that, as this is a good year, there is a lot of grass and there are a lot of calves - that he is likely to have to remove them. If that is not the case, I am sure that a letter from you, Mr Wood, tomorrow, to make Charlie confident that his current reasonably large number of calves will not be prematurely removed, that if the sales this year are not as they should be - - -
Mr Wood: Cows with their calves are fine. If he has brought in calves, it is a different matter.
MRS CARNELL: Okay. If you can give Mr Russell the assurance that the calves that he currently has will be allowed to stay until there are reasonable selling conditions for them, that they will not be removed just because the bureaucrats tell him that he should remove them, then I am sure that he would be substantially happier.
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