Page 1365 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Stevenson: It is the people's issue, the people's baby.
MRS CARNELL: Okay, I accept that. It is a people's issue, and that is the reason that it desperately needs to be handled properly and appropriately. We cannot debate a motion when we do not know what the actual details of it are. We need to know - I accept Ms Follett's comments and Mr Kaine's comments - who will run health, education and the police. Quite honestly, New South Wales has not done all that well lately.
Mr Stevenson: I have already said that the Commonwealth would.
MRS CARNELL: The Commonwealth has no infrastructure to do so, Mr Stevenson, but I do not think we should enter into that debate here. The fact of the matter is that we in the ACT should have, and we in the Liberal Party support our having, control over our future, control over where we want the ACT to be; but to assume for one moment that this Assembly, for ever and a day, in its current structure, will reflect that is showing a huge lack of capacity for lateral thought and certainly a huge lack of vision.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (3.37): Madam Speaker, there is an old statement that is, I think, fairly appropriate to today's circumstances with the Liberal Party, and it says, "The more things change the more they stay the same". There have been a few changes in the Liberal Party recently. There have been changes of positions and changes of faces, but the party is still the same. It is still ridden with conflict; it is deeply divided; it is argumentative and distrustful of each other, scheming and insecure. It is still the same. We had the example with Mr Kaine this morning. They are so divided that their people do not even go to the same Liberal Party summit; they go to different summits. That is how divided they are. They cannot turn up at the same place. So there is nothing new in the Liberal Party.
There is enormous conflict over this issue. Mrs Carnell has been leader for a few weeks and we have an immediate bust-up on the matter of self-government. The party cannot run itself, so I think they should keep their hands off trying to do anything with self-government. Maybe Mr Kaine, when he makes his speech, will get up and deny it, but the corridors tell us that this morning his party room told him to shut up, not to talk on the issue. I will withdraw that if you think I am wrong. The Liberal Party also told that to Tony De Domenico a little while ago, but I think that Mr Kaine, if he was told something, would observe the request of his party, to which he has given many years of service. Mr Kaine is not new to these sorts of arguments in the Liberal Party, as the Canberra Times reports: "Liberal MHA faces party over stand on self-rule". So nothing has changed, Mr Kaine.
Mr Kaine: When was that, 1986?
MR WOOD: It was on 25 June 1986, Mr Kaine. Would you like to see it again?
Mr Kaine: No, I have read it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .