Page 433 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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Mr De Domenico: She has increased the unemployment queue.
MR KAINE: And we still have lots of young homeless people out there. We have all sorts of disadvantaged young people. We have people who cannot get into our TAFE system. They cannot continue their education and they cannot get a job, but we are going to continue to improve services for them. Which services and for whom? This Government is full of talk. The Chief Minister then says:
... the Government will not rest on its laurels.
I do not know where the laurels are that they could possibly rest on. They do not have any.
I make a couple of other minor points. The Chief Minister, in her usual disparaging way - Mr Berry gets on his high horse whenever we criticise anyone on that side of the house - talked about a number of Government initiatives that the Canberra Business Council has congratulated them upon, including development in the North Watson area, about which she then goes on and says, "which the Opposition has tried to delay". That is an outright lie. The Opposition has not tried to - - -
Mr Berry: Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine ought to be ordered to withdraw that. He accused the Chief Minister of lying.
MADAM SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Kaine.
MR KAINE: I withdraw that, Madam Speaker. But in fact it is not true to say that the Opposition has tried to delay anything; the Opposition has not done that. What the Opposition has done is to support the community, who have major difficulties with what was being proposed up there. But the Government is not interested in that. If they cannot bulldoze and roll the thing over the community, if the Opposition interposes itself between the Government's steamroller and the rights of the people out there, we are delaying.
Mr Berry: It was a shallow stunt. That is all it was.
MR KAINE: You are shallow and you are a stunt. It is simply untrue to assert that the Opposition has tried to delay anything. The Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning knows darned well - and I am one of the people who have been criticised here by the Chief Minister - that I am totally supportive of the development there. I have gone to great lengths to make sure that it goes ahead, but goes ahead with the full understanding and knowledge of the community. Even though they may not always like the outcome, at least they understand what the Government proposes to do. In fact, I am helping the Government by making sure that they do understand it. And for that I am told by the Chief Minister that I am delaying. It is not true and it is not reasonable.
The Chief Minister talks about our public service, saying that it is obviously a key to the effective delivery of all these services. Last May the Chief Minister told us that she expected the Assembly to pass the legislation by the end of February this year. February has been and gone and we have not even seen the legislation.
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