Page 2924 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES (3.44): Madam Speaker, I begin by making it perfectly clear for Ms Follett, who undoubtedly would like to deflect some of this debate to an area where she feels on slightly stronger ground, that this is not a debate about Cook and Lyons primary schools. We have had that debate - - -
Ms Follett: Tell them that.
MR HUMPHRIES: I am telling them now. I am telling those in the gallery now. This is not a debate about Cook and Lyons primary schools. We have had that debate - - -
Mrs Grassby: They do not believe you, Gary.
MR HUMPHRIES: They never did, Mrs Grassby; so nothing has changed about that. The fact of life is that we have had that debate, and we could have it again at another time. I would be quite happy to engage in that debate. But today is not about Cook and Lyons primary schools. Today is about whether members of the Assembly and, through them, the community will be told the truth about what is happening in this community and whether members, in the course of their duties as parliamentarians, will at all times be told information which is factually correct by those members sitting opposite who hold the responsibility of Ministers in this Government. That is the question before us today.
There is no higher duty, I suggest, falling on Ministers in any government than to keep their constituents properly informed through the statements they make on the floor of the parliament of which they are members. That is a primary duty of all Ministers of the Crown. Historically, Ministers who have failed in that duty have resigned. Frankly, Madam Speaker, I have no hesitation in saying today, on the evidence which has been placed before the Assembly by Mr Kaine and his motion, that I believe that these Ministers should accept the motion of censure moved today and should resign.
Madam Speaker, we have had this curious argument put forward by Mr Wood and Ms Follett that there were two positions. We had a departmental position advanced by the Department of Education full of miscreants, full of people who were not prepared to accept the will of the new incoming Government, full of malcontents who had to be eradicated and re-educated in the new mould. On the other hand, we had a position by the Government that there should be a certain cost attached to the reopening of Cook Primary School and Lyons Primary School. The view being advanced by the Government today is, "Well, we disagreed. We had a figure and they had a figure". The first point that needs to be noted, Madam Speaker, is that here were two politicians only days into government. The Minister for Education, who had never been a Minister in a government before, was telling professional educators, professional education administrators, "No, no, no. We know better than you do. The figures that you are advancing are not the right figures. We know that it does not cost X dollars to reopen certain schools; it actually costs Y dollars".
Madam Speaker, that in itself ought to raise some questions with people. What exactly was the agenda underpinning the Government's position in this matter? They have said that the department had an agenda of its own; that the department's objective - and in particular that of Dr Willmot, according to the
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