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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 728 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

It sounds all right for a political party to have the philosophy of getting back to the three Rs - reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic - as its driving force, but this was just a political statement that it would improve the three Rs in our schools if we had these work for the dole participants helping with literacy and numeracy. How stupid can you get? They were the origins of this program. The ACT was the first to try it on. Now, Mr Stefaniak says that, overwhelmingly, people in Australia support this proposal. Overwhelmingly, people are cynical about it. Overwhelmingly, people want their youngsters and others in the community, including the long-term unemployed, to find jobs. Overwhelmingly, they support any move to find them jobs. But they do not support meaningless ideological programs, which this one was and was demonstrated to be.

The subject I need to get back to for a moment is the contribution to this committee report by Mr Hird. I think there is still a motion somewhere on the notice paper about that.

Mr Stefaniak: That is what you are talking to, actually, or you are meant to be talking to.

MR BERRY: No, we are talking about the work for the dole project at primary schools. We are talking about order of the day No 1, are we not?

MR SPEAKER: Yes. Mr Berry, you have moved an amendment to that item, so the debate can be conducted on both.

MR BERRY: I am sorry, I have missed that, Mr Speaker. A lot of time has passed since then. I think that the point has been made in relation to that. At the conclusion of my contribution, I will seek leave to withdraw that amendment, not because I do not believe in what I said in the first place, but because I think it would create some difficulties for the committee process in the future if we went down that path. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, but what drove it was perfectly legitimate. I think the written contribution made by Mr Hird at the end of the process was quite in conflict with his contribution to the committee process.

I am sure my colleague Ms Tucker will back me up when I say that all along the way Mr Hird went along with us. I am not going to sit idly by and watch this sort of thing happening. I do not mind if Mr Hird has a particular view as long as he expresses it throughout the process and does not lead his other committee colleagues up the garden path during the process. I do not think that this amendment ought to proceed because it would create difficulties for the future if it did. It is a shot across the bow and I hope that the Government has listened. In my view, Mr Hird's contribution was written in a departmental or ministerial office somewhere. I think I am entitled to have those suspicions. I know that Mr Hird is busy in his committee contributions, but he will have to pay more attention to them and not let the people there lead him around by the nose. I think that this ought to be a lesson for the future that, if you want to have a position in relation to something, you should adopt it early and be sincere about it in the committee process so that we can debate it, instead of coming down on us like a ton of bricks after the event, offering up new information and a new position which none of us had heard of in the committee process.

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