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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (19 October) . . Page.. 1853 ..

MS McRAE: I keep getting interjections about things being done during the day. Again, that is a ridiculous interjection. If that was the problem in June, that could have been fixed in June. We did not hear - - -

Mrs Carnell: How?

MS McRAE: That is exactly my point. If you had a problem, you should have analysed the problem, presented the problem and found the solution. You should not have made a fundamental change to a service in secret. The matter had to be pursued by a union until it became open. There was not going to be a tendering process until the union put it before you, and even then the tendering process was rushed through. There were 10 interested organisations that nobody followed up. On top of that, the documents were out of order.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.37): Mr Speaker, we have heard a rather extraordinary speech from Ms McRae. I was flabbergasted by the suggestion that we have not allowed open inquiry on this matter. All the people on the frontbench on this side of the chamber have spent the last few weeks sitting before the Estimates Committee, which Ms McRae chairs. It might pay members to peruse the Estimates Committee Hansard to see what questions were asked of Mr Stefaniak concerning the youth shelter. Although I do not have a copy in front of me, I understand that there were very few questions indeed, if any at all, and certainly none from Ms McRae. The woman who is now saying that she wants to know, that she needs to have answers and that she needs to see what is behind this dark, covert Government clearly did not bother to ask any questions in the perfect forum in which such questions might be asked. Dear, oh dear, Ms McRae! Do not insult our intelligence with that kind of claptrap in this place.

I am concerned about this motion coming up at this stage. I ask members to peruse the notice paper of the Assembly and consider the number of items on the notice paper indicating motions before the Assembly at the present time - and some have been dealt with in the past - effectively demanding or at least requesting that elements of the Government's budget be wound back or abandoned. We have notice of a motion that the Government not proceed with the sale of health centres. That was in the paper yesterday. We have the motion from Ms McRae that we not proceed to reduce any funding for ACTCOSS. We have the proposal from Ms Follett that we not reduce funding to Inanna women's refuge. We have the proposal from Ms Tucker that we not proceed with the expansion of any further town centres or Manuka until there has been a review of trading hours. That has significant budgetary implications. We have some suggestion from Mr Moore that there will be a motion or other amendment relating to the education budget. We had the proposal today to defer the Public Sector Management (Amendment) Bill, which is a Bill which has significant - - -

Ms McRae: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. I would like to know the relevance of all of this. Mr Speaker, I call your attention to relevance.

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