Page 2923 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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Madam Speaker, in accordance with the normal practice, the Government reviewed the estimates for implementation of new policies in July of this year. That review confirmed implementation of the reopenings as planned at the commencement of the third term of 1991, and there was no variation from the estimates. The Canberra Times - and the Opposition, to my surprise - seem quite unable to distinguish between a bid for funds and final estimates. I find that extraordinary, coming from a former Treasurer. If any variation from an initial bid were improper or inappropriate, as was suggested, governments would be required - and maybe this is what happened in the Alliance - to forsake any attempt at expenditure control. The review that I have just referred to, Madam Speaker, confirms Mr Wood's judgment, and my agreement with that judgment, on the cost of reopening Cook and Lyons schools.
Mr Wood has also gone into the issue of repairs and maintenance. The fact that some of the items in that initial bid have still not been carried out because they are not required is proof positive that that bid was inflated. I fail to see how any responsible member of this Assembly, any member wishing to give best value to the Canberra community, could see it otherwise. When there is a departure from an agency's bid, then that departure represents the Government's view of the priorities in that bid. I do not think that it is in any way sensible or even rational to view that in some sinister light.
Madam Speaker, I can only think that, in raising this issue, members opposite seek to raise again the issue of school closures - an issue on which the Alliance Government's record was truly execrable. Madam Speaker, they had absolutely no mandate to decimate the ACT school system, but they went even further than decimating it, of course, and proposed to close one in four schools. They paid a very high price for that. They lost government because of that. Madam Speaker, I believe that that is still their agenda. Members opposite are still sitting here trying to prove that there was something sinister, something shonky, something not quite right, in this Government's delivering on our promise to reopen those schools. It really is a base attack and one that, as I say, I believe is born from their view that these schools should still be closed. Mr Humphries and his colleagues would probably go back to their original agenda of closing 25 schools.
Madam Speaker, this attack is unwarranted. I have absolute confidence in my Minister. I believe that the community can have absolute confidence in this Government because we do what we say we are going to do. Unlike the one and only experience of this lot in government, Madam Speaker, on our side of the house if we make a promise we deliver upon it. That is exactly what has happened on this occasion. In delivering on that promise, we have upset a lot of people - Liberal Party people, and at least one bureaucrat, it would seem. But there is no doubt in my mind that the community approves of that course of action. There is no doubt in my mind that the community value their neighbourhood school system, wish to see it protected and wish to have a government with a similar commitment. That is what they have here. This motion, Madam Speaker, is just sour grapes. I believe that it ought to be dismissed out of hand by this Assembly.
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