Page 29 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 22 February 1994
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So here we have one of the great support groups of this Labor Government saying, "Hey, listen, you have it all wrong".
Ms Ellis: I do not know what this has to do with the matter of public importance.
MR DE DOMENICO: I will tell you what it has to do with this, Ms Ellis. If you read the matter of public importance, it says, "Lost opportunities for public benefit". Ms Ellis ought to realise that a $6.5m potential saving, and more perhaps, on the buses has something to do with "Lost opportunities for public benefit". Ms Ellis would know that, notwithstanding the fact that only about 6 per cent of the Canberra community use the buses, for a start, this enormous subsidy is somewhere over the $50m mark. Mr Connolly gets outraged sometimes when people do not quote figures verbatim according to what he has to say.
Mrs Carnell: It is basically a million dollars a week.
MR DE DOMENICO: That is right. Basically, any opportunity to save $6.5m, or $5.5m, or $4.5m, ought to be taken up by the scruff of the neck.
Mr Kaine: Think what it would do for the Education Department. It would get Bill off the hook with his education budget.
MR DE DOMENICO: Exactly. The Transport Workers Union, in their own words, has said, "Listen, we are sick and tired of this Government's lack of action, its lack of direction and its lack of understanding of the issue". That is not what I said; that is what the Transport Workers Union has said. Who can ever forget, Mr Deputy Speaker, what Mr Heaney said before Christmas?
Ms Ellis: It has nothing to do with him.
MR DE DOMENICO: Ms Ellis is saying, "It has nothing to do with it". I will tell you what it has to do with it, Ms Ellis - and we do not get it from a whiteboard, by the way; we get it from pieces of paper written by union people, unlike people in other places. I will tell you what happens. All those unions that are now coming up and attacking Mr Berry and the Chief Minister and the departments for their lack of action happened to be, at one time, members of the central coordinating group. I say "happened to be" because they no longer are. Why are they not? It is because a lot of them have said, "Listen, we are sick and tired of this procrastination that has been going on".
Mr Lamont: Mr Deputy Speaker, it behoves me to rise - - -
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is it a point of order, Mr Lamont?
Mr Lamont: It is a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.
MR DE DOMENICO: Under what standing order, Mr Lamont?
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Lamont: It is the concept of relevance. We have a matter of public importance - - -
MR DE DOMENICO: What standing order?
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