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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4292 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

That is what I want still. Unfortunately, Mr Speaker, I will go into the 1998 election saying the same thing. But at least it will not be in a vacuum. At least since 1992 the Labor Government has prepared a 2020 vision - Dr Ellyard, in particular, did a huge amount of work on that - commissioned by Rosemary Follett and the Government of which Wayne Berry was a Minister, and they did some fantastic work. There was the Government's response, and that in turn led into the electoral period of this Assembly.

It was in my role as chair of the Planning and Environment Committee that we began a process of developing a strategic planning exercise for Canberra with reference to land planning, since a full exercise had not been done. Indeed, we conceded, and handed that over to the Government when the Chief Minister indicated that she would work with the Federal Government in order to develop a full strategic plan for Canberra. Although in many ways I would have liked to have control of a system for ensuring that the strategic plan went along by the method that I thought was the most appropriate, I thought it was even more important for there to be a relationship between the Federal Government and the Territory Government by which they would become closer. There was a series of processes after that. Only a small part of them was to do with governance. They have led to the National Capital Futures Conference proceedings being tabled in this place today.

I was extremely disappointed by the response of Mr Berry, who, when the rest of us had spent two days at this conference, stood up and said, "I do not think I should have been at the conference anyway; but I am here to bag it. I am not really here to bag the conference as a conference; but I am here to bag the conference for the benefit of the media". As we heard in Wayne Berry's speech on this matter earlier today, it demonstrates very clearly what the Berry Labor approach is about. It is a very different approach from that of his predecessor. It is the approach that says, "I am not interested in anybody else. I will bag everybody else. I am not interested in compromise. I am not interested in working with people. I am not interested in the best outcomes for Canberra. What I am interested in is getting a majority for Labor".

The result of that, Mr Speaker, is the Labor Party that we see at the moment, with the Berry taint. It is very sad that we have lost the cooperative approach that had been growing in this Assembly, in one section of the Assembly. Even when I say that, Mr Speaker, I am conscious of the fact that there are members of the Labor Party who are very willing to work cooperatively and try to find ways through. Just this morning, I complimented Ms McRae on her chairing of the Estimates Committee. I was in another committee today where a sensible compromise was worked out when different people had very strong views. I think that these things can be achieved. The only person that I see actually working to undermine that, to wreck that, is Wayne Berry. That is a great disappointment. I ask him yet again, as I have done on many occasions, to reconsider that position and try to find ways to work cooperatively for the best outcomes for the Territory.

Mr Berry: Michael, we cannot all agree with you all of the time. Be tolerant of people who do not agree with you, Michael. If you come up with loopy ideas, people will criticise them.

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