Page 2616 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 24 August 1993
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MR DE DOMENICO: The Executive, Mr Lamont, also needs to be fully informed so that it can make proper decisions on priorities as well. If the documentation going to the Executive in certain circumstances is as good as or as bad as what goes to the PDI Committee, I suggest that sometimes it might be difficult for the Executive to make those informed decisions. I think the comments made by other members of the committee are important. There is no place to run, there is no place hide; the PDI Committee, in a non-political way - I stress that because every other member has said it - before it makes up its mind about recommending the expenditure of millions and millions of dollars of taxpayers' and ratepayers' funds, will make sure that the documentation and the arguments presented to us are plausible.
I will not elaborate on other comments made by members of the committee, but Mr Lamont made an important comment about coeducation and co-location and about systemic schools and government schools. He said that in times of economic restraint the Government ought to look at co-location. I suggest going a step further and doing this in terms of commonsense and not just in times of economic restraint. In terms of commonsense it might be advisable to look at the sharing of certain facilities. I will go a bit further than just sharing playgrounds and parks and what have you. For example, if two schools want to conduct a French class one teacher could be employed and used by both schools to make sure that that facility was available to all students, notwithstanding whether it was a systemic school or a government school. It has been done before and it will be done again. It has been done before in other States and Territories in this country and it is the commonsense approach of working closely together.
Comments were made about the Tuggeranong youth centre. I endorse the comments made by all members of the committee. But let us make sure that we ask the youth in the Tuggeranong Valley what their views are and what their needs are before we go ahead and start building monoliths.
Ms Ellis: The Government has done that already.
MR DE DOMENICO: Ms Ellis has already done that. Okay. I cannot stress that enough. We have to ask the users of the facility what their needs are, instead of other people making decisions on their behalf.
Comments were made about the minor new works situation. I think Ms Szuty said that this is not an avenue for hiding slush funds for other purposes. Perhaps the greatest example of realisation that there is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide is in paragraph 71 of the report under the heading "Department of Health (Program 26 - ACT Health)", where reference is made to a minor procedures unit and all sorts of things. The PDI Committee quite rightly put in its report that, when questioned, that really meant that part of that minor procedures unit included an abortion clinic. Whilst it was very difficult - - -
Mr Berry: No; you are wrong.
MR DE DOMENICO: The Minister says that we are wrong.
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