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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 857 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

That, Mr Speaker, is not acceptable. That is why it is important that this Assembly today recognises the importance of the inquiry and says to the Government that this is an issue which they cannot afford to ignore; that this is an inquiry that they cannot afford to ignore.

The final issue that I want to address in this debate today has to do with the Government not taking any action on closures, not taking any action to restructure, until the Assembly has considered the committee's report, because again and again we have seen this Minister prepared basically to suggest that the Assembly committee's report is not relevant to decisions that his Government will make.

Mr Speaker, Mr Osborne has circulated an amendment to the motion which suggests that the committee should report to the Assembly by 1 September. Now I see that Ms Tucker has circulated a further amendment, which I am sure she will move shortly, to change that report date to 22 September. That seems to be an entirely sensible approach. I think it is unfortunate that we have had Mr Osborne come in here and talk about how he was not consulted about Mr Berry's motion, and then Mr Osborne does exactly the same thing and says, "This is your report date, committee", and does not even talk to the chair of the committee about it. What an absurd approach by Mr Osborne! What hypocrisy it is for Mr Osborne to suggest that he should be consulted, but he should not consult the committee about the report date!

Why is that important, Mr Speaker? That is important because the committee has already worked out its timetable for the inquiry. It has worked out when submissions need to come in; it has worked out when it will need to hold public hearings; and it has worked out the time it will need to structure the report to this Assembly. I would have thought, Mr Speaker, that if the Government had a problem with the report date of the Assembly committee it would have got its representative on the committee to say something. It would have got Mr Hird to come along and say, "Look, I am sorry; the Government has a bit of a problem here. I have spoken to my colleague Mr Stefaniak and we think that the report date should be X". But, did Mr Hird do that?

Mr Hird: No.

MR CORBELL: No, Mr Hird did not do that. It comes out of his own mouth. Mr Hird, what a silly position you are in! Here we have the Government saying that the report date must be by a certain time and you as a member of the committee did not even suggest that when the committee was structuring its timetable for this inquiry. It just shows, Mr Speaker, how bumbling the Government's efforts have been on this matter and why it has been important for this motion to be moved in the Assembly today reinforcing the importance of an inquiry.

Mr Speaker, fundamentally and finally, the issue that this Assembly must address is that we are talking about people and their young children who use preschool services. We are not talking about real estate; we are not talking about how much money can be gained by selling a building; we are talking about the provision of a service to the community. We are not just talking about the provision of a service to the community for people who use the preschool service proper. We are also talking about other community organisations that use preschool buildings for other reasons, such as day care groups,

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