Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (22 May) . . Page.. 1592 ..

MR DE DOMENICO: You lot were in power for nearly five years and you did nothing, Ms McRae. This Government is going to take the bull by the horns. We are not going to please everybody in the community. There will be some criticism of what the Government will announce next week or the week after.

Ms McRae: You bet.

MR DE DOMENICO: Ms McRae says, "You bet". Ms McRae is already criticising something she has not seen. We know that that is the lot of the Opposition in this place - criticise for the sake of criticising.

Mr Whitecross: We just know how you fix things.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Whitecross interjects, "It depends on how you think". They will fix you properly, mate, if you do not do your job properly in this place. I will tell you what we will do, Mr Whitecross. Unlike your colleagues behind you who did nothing for five years, we will take the bull by the horns and make the tough decisions that need to be made in order to help the community as a whole, noting that individual members of the community might disagree with what we might have to say.

MR WOOD (11.41): Mr Speaker, in declining to support the Greens' motion, the Opposition's approach is entirely consistent. We did not support a moratorium when it was proposed by the now Government some two or three years ago. We believe today, as then, that this is an inappropriate way to proceed. It was not the view of Mr De Domenico and company at that time. A moment ago Mr De Domenico sounded eminently reasonable in saying, "Yes, we had a short-term proposal for a moratorium pending further reviews". But that was not exactly what happened at the time. They blew this issue up, sensationalised it and carried on forever about it. Let me add to what Ms McRae read. Let me quote the Chief Minister, and this is something she will overcome, I would expect, when her deputy delivers the retail strategy shortly.

Mrs Carnell: Mr Humphries will.

MR WOOD: Mr Humphries. On page 4191 of volume 4 of 4 of Hansard for 1994 - it is probably the page Mrs Carnell has - she is recorded as having said this:

The fact is that if you drive around Canberra, and certainly if you drive around the valley, it would be hard not to come up with the conclusion that we already have too much retail space in this city.

Somehow she is going to have to accommodate to the problems she saw then. Let me quote what Mr De Domenico said at page 4205:

Madam Speaker, if it is wrong to protect small local business in the Tuggeranong Valley, we are wrong.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .