Page 3974 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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Ms Ellis: I should raise a point of order, but I cannot be bothered, Madam Speaker. I think it would be superfluous to address the point.
MR DE DOMENICO: Nor could Mrs Kelly. She could not be bothered either. She tried to take the kudos when things were looking good, but she squirmed out of it when things did not happen. Madam Speaker, there has been a litany of broken promises from two Federal Labor Prime Ministers and from every Federal Labor member representing this community. They attempt to get into the limelight when things are looking good and then squirm out of it when things do not happen. It is no use Mr Wood standing up and talking about The Things That Matter. We can talk about the things that never happen under a Federal Labor government. If we want to be really honest about the thing, the Federal Labor Government treats the people of the ACT with disdain. It takes them for granted. It always has taken them for granted. When it comes close to election time, they all beam, smile and make every promise under the sun; but they fail to deliver.
Mr Hawke failed to deliver. Mr Keating has failed to deliver. Mrs Kelly has failed to deliver. Senator McMullan has failed to deliver. Ms Follett and her ACT Labor Government have squirmed and chopped and changed all the time. Not one of them has had the guts to say, "We have been dudded by our Federal Labor Party colleagues". They have squirmed; they have backed off; they have tried to defend the errors of their ways. Let us be honest about this thing. We were promised the world; we ended up getting hardly anything at all. I think this Government stands condemned, as do their Federal colleagues.
MR MOORE (4.36): Madam Speaker, the last part of Mr De Domenico's speech was rather repetitive. He kept saying "failed to deliver, failed to deliver, failed to deliver". But he did make some sense and he certainly reinforced his point. Madam Speaker, rather than go through a lot of those issues that have been raised in the politicking that has been going on, I would like to take us to the point where we now have something in place and express a concern that I have with a possible trade-off of land for the area of the Kingston foreshores. The reason I raise this issue is that I have a real concern that a direct swap for that piece of land would in fact be a hopeless deal for us.
I say that because, if you take a map of the particular area in Kingston and look at what is Federal land and what is already ACT land, you will realise that in fact there is a very small piece of Federal land that looks like an arrow driven into the middle of the ACT land. If you go there, you can identify the piece of Federal land by the pieces of granite left over from the Federal Parliament House. The Federal land also includes the area of the Government Printing Office. The ACT land there could easily be redeveloped for townhouses or something like that, in spite of that piece of Federal land jutting into it. Of course, it would be convenient for us to get that piece of land back from the Federal Government. It is incomprehensible to me how it did not transfer to the ACT at the time of self-government and why the Federal Government felt that they should hold on to it.
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