Page 1220 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 1993
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MR WOOD: You have never consulted before. You have admitted failure. In your radio interview you said the same thing; you said, in effect, "We have failed. We, the Liberals, have failed over the last period of time". You have forced Mr Kaine - his was the only MPI I heard read out - to stand up and take the lead as you kick him and say, "Mr Kaine never ever consulted. He was a failure. Our party and Mr Kaine were a failure".
Mr De Domenico: He was the one that made the hard decisions, Mr Minister. As soon as you make a hard decision they are going to chop you off.
MR WOOD: He made the hard decisions with Mr Humphries on schools. I use your terms - - -
Mr De Domenico: You have to pull your socks up, or they are going to put you on the back benches and promote Mr Lamont.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR WOOD: He made the hard decisions, you say, without consultation. Mr Humphries went out and said to the community, "We are going to close up to 25 schools. We are not going to talk to you about it, except that we will discuss the criteria for picking those schools". That is what he walked out and said, and he would not deny it if he were sitting in here. So, you took the hard decisions; and there are hard decisions in bringing down budgets. Mr Kaine did take some hard decisions, but he did not talk to the community about it. You are now reminding him, in this debate, that consultation under the Liberal Party has been a complete failure. You have a whole new direction: "We, in this wonderful new party of ours, are going to consult". What a kick it is for Mr Kaine, and what a cheek it is for you people now to turn around and say to us, having admitted your failure, "Go out there and consult".
What advice can you give? I have been sitting here for 25 minutes, listening to you, waiting for that advice, and it has not been forthcoming. Mr Kaine gave a quite reasonable statement of some of the budget problems. I cannot say the same for Mrs Carnell, but Mr Kaine did run through the problems. We know them. Most of us in this Assembly know them, but not the new leader. But there was no talk about consultation. Consultation is, of course, important if we are to convince this community about our budgets and about the style of government. We have to carry the community with us. It seems that the Liberal Party has now decided to take the cheap shot, to take the easy way, to say, "We will go down now for a council style of government", whatever that is supposed to mean - something like Brisbane, or whatever - "and we will talk about something that is popular amongst the people in the community, as a cheap way of gaining votes". That is your style of consultation. I think it is disgraceful. It is cynicism in the extreme.
As to consultation, it is interesting that this morning I was sitting down with the Australian Teachers Union talking budget when I was apprised of the MPI today. I will be sitting down with the other players in the education field next week.
Mrs Carnell: Which players? Do you mean the staff?
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