Page 500 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
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Mr Wood: As you found out.
MR KAINE: Yes. Some of us have seen some ups and downs in this building; some not so many. I am sure that most of us will really regret leaving behind things such as the lifts, the air-conditioning and the physical characteristics of this building that I was going to say was designed for public servants, but I do not think even public servants ought to be expected to work in it. It will be with mixed feelings, joy and jubilation, that I prepare over the next few weeks to move, and I presume that everybody will share those feelings with me.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.49): Madam Speaker, I have very few regrets - in fact, no regrets - about leaving this building, for all of the reasons that members will be aware of: The lifts, the air-conditioning, the leaking roof. Now we have even discovered that there is something shonky in the water, a point which we should have realised a lot earlier. Madam Speaker, I think the worst aspect of this building is that the overwhelming majority of the ACT community do not know we are here. It seems to me that in moving we will have a much better opportunity of forming the people's house, a place that people know is their local Assembly, a place that they can identify with, hopefully a place that they will visit much more frequently and a place that will develop the kind of identity that a similar parliament would have in any other State. There is also the question of saving the $2m rent a year, which I think is hard to overlook in our current financial circumstances.
Madam Speaker, I do not regret at all that we are moving from this place. To the people, mainly public servants, who put together this chamber and our Assembly accommodation very rapidly and at a time of ever accelerating change in their lives, I would like to say thank you very much, because the Assembly precinct, the Assembly chamber and our offices have served us for more than five years now. Given that it was a temporary measure and given the circumstances that prevailed at the time, they did a good job. Now we are moving on, and thank heavens for that; but let us not overlook all of the work that went into providing us with this temporary home.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
ADJOURNMENT
Motion (by Mr Berry) agreed to:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Assembly adjourned at 3.52 pm until Tuesday, 12 April 1994, at 2.30 pm
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