Page 20 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 22 February 1994
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We intend to see that the balance is the right one. In response to these pressures we expect to see more variety of lifestyles, a more compact form for the city, and more environmentally friendly systems.
Madam Speaker, I am proud of the Government's record of solid achievements and stability. 1994 will see the Government build upon that record. There will be no froth and bubble, none of the empty effervescence and populist politics that we have come to expect from the Opposition. There will be no departure from our emphasis on quiet, deliberate and solid achievement. 1994 will mark the culmination of a successful three-year term in government. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Carnell) adjourned.
GOVERNMENT SERVICE
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MADAM SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Mr Kaine proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
Lost opportunities for public benefit - the failure of the Follett Government to provide direction on the establishment of the new ACT Government Service.
MR KAINE (3.28): Madam Speaker, I must say that I raise this subject for debate today more in sorrow than in anger, because - and I want to emphasise this - it really does have to do with lost opportunities. I think that in today's world these are opportunities that we simply could not afford to lose, but in many cases we have already. We are well aware, of course, that positive action from Ms Follett on this matter began only after Paul Keating told her to get on with it. It is another one of those cases where the initiative did not come from this Government. In fact very few initiatives at all have come from this Government. What that meant, of course, was that we had already lost approximately three years before Ms Follett began to do anything about this matter.
Ms Follett: You did not do it either.
MR KAINE: I would remind her that when I was Chief Minister I was talking constantly about the need to do this, but another two years went by and then Paul Keating had to tell the Chief Minister to get on with it. A delay of five years in putting into place what is in fact the final mosaic in the panel of the new body politic, in my view, has been far too long. We already had the court system and we took over the police function, and we did those things a long time ago. The fact that it has taken five years already before we have even begun to move towards establishing our own public service is in itself an opportunity lost.
The Chief Minister has not been motivated by any urgency at all on this matter. In fact I noticed in a speech that she made back on 17 December 1992 that she made the point that "progress has not been rapid" up until that point. It has been even less rapid since. In the second speech that she made on this matter, on 11 May 1993, she said:
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