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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3787 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

That is what I believe the committee is saying in point (iii) - "identify assets which have the potential for sale and leaseback, and sale of lease". But there are also, as I understand it, a number of buildings which are currently in private ownership and which are to return to government ownership. This is our point (iv). My understanding is that the National Convention Centre is one of those. Tell us what are the outstanding debts on it, what is its likely run-down period, and when it is coming back to government. Let us identify these things. Let us get them open. Let us get them in the public sphere.

Mr Speaker, another thing that was dealt with in great detail was Jobs for Canberra. I heard Ms Tucker and others touching on it. (Extension of time granted) Mr Speaker, the Jobs for Canberra issue, I think, is a particularly important one, because it is one where the Government was really caught out. They were really caught out in presenting something which just was not the case. They have really gilded the lily and presented something in a way that may have suited their political purposes but that really in the end was a mean thing to do to unemployed people in Canberra. They were trying to suggest that there were 3,000 jobs here, 50 jobs there and so on, when, in fact, they were not talking in the traditional way about full-time equivalents. So, recommendation 7 of the committee was to put these things on a full-time equivalent basis. If you then want to say, as is the case with the graffiti program or the Kick Start program, "This will mean that 60 people will have jobs", I do not have a problem with that; but at least identify them in our traditional way where we can do comparisons of what is the full-time equivalent.

The other one that I think is worth mentioning is the implication that there were new jobs when there were not. The best example of that was with the 50 new teachers. There are not 50 new teaching positions. There are 50 new teachers. But they are replacing 50 older teachers. They are replacing teachers. So, there were no new jobs. There were new people in those jobs, but there were no new jobs. I think that one is a very clear example of providing information and claiming it to be something that it is not - an issue that I call gilding the lily.

Mr Speaker, the Ngunnawal preschool was another interesting one. I notice that the Government has now made a press statement about this. They have decided to back off from Ngunnawal preschool because of the ideological objections of people like me. Mr Speaker, if you want to call someone who wishes to protect government education an ideologue, then I am very proud to have an ideological position on it. That is what it was all about. It was all about whether or not government education as a whole was going to be protected in this way. I hope that this Liberal Minister watches very carefully his Liberal counterparts on the hill and is in a position to explain to them, when they come up with ideas which are effectively per capita funding, that it will undermine government education, it will undermine equity, it will undermine the opportunity individuals have and it will undermine individual choice - the very things they claim to represent. I am happy, of course, to speak in more detail to the Minister about that, should he like it.

I would just like to raise one further issue that comes out of the budget and that the Assembly committee did not comment on. It came out of the capital works program. That is the issue of Ginninderra Drive and John Dedman Parkway. It seems to me, Mr Speaker, that the money is up for expenditure on the extension of Mouat Street and we have a proposal now before the community. I understand that there is to be a community meeting and explanation of it tomorrow night. I offer my congratulations

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