Page 1783 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
MR KAINE (4.00): The Chief Minister has said in the Minister's defence that this is the hallmark of the Minister, or something of that sort. Unfortunately, the way this matter has been dealt with is indicative not only of the modus operandi of the Minister but also of the modus operandi of this Government.
One might well ask why the Assembly moved the motion it did just recently. It did so because the matter had not been resolved. It was starting to boil and something needed to be done. The Chief Minister is saying that the time had come when a decision had to be made. It is very interesting that the whole matter came to boiling point, as the Chief Minister herself acknowledges, over a long period of time before the Assembly decided that something should be done about it. Ms Szuty supported that motion, although she is backing away from it now. When the Assembly got to that point, the Minister then says, "I have made up my mind and I am not going to change it". This is typical of the way this Government works. It is not interested in what the other members of this Assembly say. It is not interested in the opinion we have about anything. It is no more interested in the community view about what should be happening.
What the Assembly finally decided to do was to require the Government to investigate this matter, taking into account the interests of all those concerned - not to make some arbitrary decision. Certainly, I had suggested that Mr Connolly should make up his mind and do it; but he should have done it a long time ago, not waited until the whole thing was about to explode. As Mr Connolly himself said, it was getting to the point where there were fisticuffs at the scene of an accident. Those were Mr Connolly's words. This Minister presided over the deterioration of the situation to the point where two competing services got to the scene of an accident and started having fisticuffs - his words, not mine.
Because he could not make up his mind, that position was reached, and when this Assembly - not a couple of members of the Assembly, but a majority of the members of this Assembly - finally said, "Enough is enough; let us have a proper inquiry to find out what the optimum solution is", the Minister and the Chief Minister said, "No; we have made up our minds. We will have an investigation, but after the decision has been made". What on earth it is that they are going to investigate now, I cannot imagine. Are they going to investigate the possibility of placing the entire responsibility for this service in the hands of the police? If they do, you could fool me, because the Minister had already determined that that is not the solution. What solution is he going to consider? Is he going to have another inquiry and take the report, as the Government is wont to do with reports such as those into the health system, and say, "They are confidential reports and we are not going to tell you what the solution is. We will make the decision and we will tell you what we are going to do. Do not ask us for a copy of the report, because it is a confidential document"?
I repeat, Madam Speaker, that it is typical of the way this Government goes about its business. It plays the game of community consultation. It carries out none of it, because it does not want to know what anybody else thinks. It is quite arbitrary decision making: "Do not tell us the facts; do not even ask us to inquire as to what the facts are. Let us just make a decision and you, the community, can wear it. Let us not worry about the morale of the Australian Federal Police, or of the firefighters. Let us make a decision, and they can wear it, whatever it is".
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .