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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (26 March) . . Page.. 607 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

she bleats that she cannot afford a pay rise for her employees; and her only explanation is that the money tree has been cut down. It is a shame that she did not realise before the election that the money tree was not really there. Perhaps she would have been a bit more sensible.

In conclusion, the "Governing Canberra" report provides a quite intelligent overview of the role of government in this Territory. Unfortunately, it does nothing to illuminate the rhetoric which Mrs Carnell used before the election, which was the stimulus to this report, about council-style government and how the world would be a much better place when we moved to council-style government. Mrs Carnell talks about not being interested in an adversarial style of government; but she has a secretive approach, an approach that is based on open hostility to those people who disagree with her. We can only marvel at the wide gap between her rhetoric and the reality of this Liberal Government.

I do not think this reform advisory group has taken the debate very far. Perhaps that is because it did not have very far to go. The real solution to this problem is not about changing all the structures of government. The real issue is the business of how you go about, on a day-to-day basis, the business of governing. It is the attitude which you adopt in government that makes the difference - not tinkering with structures, not hiding behind the rhetoric of council-style government and criticising adversarial-style government and talking blithely about community consultation. It is about how you act in practice.

We have had one year of this Carnell Government, and it has not been a year that has covered Mrs Carnell in glory when it comes to openness, consultation, listening to the community, or any of the other things that the Canberra community expect of her. We can only hope that, over the next two years, for the sake of Canberra, she does better than she has done so far.

MR KAINE (11.17): I must say that I was interested to note how the new Leader of the Opposition would perform on his first day, and he has demonstrated quite clearly how he is going to perform: In a word, ineffectively. Here is a document that talks about the whole structure by which the ACT will be governed, legitimately initiated by the Chief Minister to bring forward some ideas as to how governing this community might be better; and what do we get? The Leader of the Opposition had 20 minutes to respond to this. The subject was worth every minute of that 20 minutes. He used only about 10 minutes of his time, and he added not one jot of a new thought to the subject. I think that says something about the quality of the person the Labor Party just put in to be the alternative Chief Minister of this Territory. The thought terrifies me. This is a subject that requires a great deal of debate, and to shrug it off as some sort of mickey mouse exercise, as the Leader of the Opposition has done, I think is appalling.

I must say, though, that I believe that the Opposition and I are probably in agreement on one point. I think the Chief Minister must be terribly disappointed with the high-priced group that she put together to discuss this subject and come back with a report that would be of value to her. She must have been greatly disappointed when she got it, because there are no proposals in here. It is a very lightweight, academic, once-over-lightly of some of the issues - - -

Mr Whitecross: That is what I said. Ha, ha!

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