Page 650 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 23 March 1993
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for delay. The process is complex and it has some difficulties, but it should not consume yet another year. The Government is simply dragging its feet on this issue to protect the trade unions. It is not even noting a need to discuss the issues with its own public servants; they are talking only to the trade unions. Why do you not get out and talk to the people whose jobs we are talking about?
I applaud the Government's creation of an Aboriginal Advisory Council. In this Year of the World's Indigenous Peoples it is fitting that the ACT recognises its own original citizens and assures them of an appropriate and secure place in our community.
Two things, in particular, concern me about the Government's program or lack of it. For example, the Government has announced the finalisation of the Electoral Bill which, they say, reflects the electorate's wishes. The Opposition can give the community a firm undertaking that it will ensure that the Electoral Bill, as implemented, will reflect the community view. However, I will be keen to see how quickly the Labor Party can bring this legislation forward.
Secondly, the Chief Minister announced the Government's intention to complete the Territory Plan. At last, I say. Mr Wood talked about it a little while ago in answer to a question. It has been almost two years since the plan was put forward, more or less in a final form that reflected the community's views - two years in which the Government has pursued consultation of a sort and made more promises than a salesman at a conference. The plan is still not delivered and out there in the community there are real and continuing misgivings over this "consultation" which must now be addressed, by default, by the Planning Committee of this Assembly. We are being approached by people who say that they are not satisfied with the consultative process and they want the Planning Committee to take up their issues - after two years of consultative government. You have to be joking!
Reflecting the Chief Minister's closing words in her statement of 16 February, I too believe that this year will be one full of interest and promise. In fact, we have had a lot of interest already, have we not? Unfortunately, that has nothing to do with anything that this Government may or may not do. This Government certainly will not help business or economic growth, except by accident. On its past record it will not help to reduce unemployment or help to create jobs. It will not even be any more successful in finding out that consultation actually means talking to people rather than looking out at the world from behind the blinds on the fifth floor.
The interest and the promise will come from paying attention to the bread-and-butter issues, not the social engineering ones. It will come from guiding and being guided by the community, not by turning the community into a social laboratory but by actually doing some of that consultation that the Government talks about - talks about ad nauseam - - -
Mr Lamont: Isn't this a direct take out of Fightback?
MR KAINE: This is a direct take out of my intellect and my intellectual capacity. Madam Speaker, as far as the Government's "program" is concerned, perhaps the best thing that could happen to it would be for the Government to take it back for a rewrite. At least after a second go at it we may actually have a comprehensive, practical and useful program rather than simply a laundry list.
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