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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2192 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

parents, colleagues, peers and fellow students of the need for support for these children, we should put it towards early intervention.

Mr Speaker, on the actual process, we have to remember that we are committing $27 million and, when we get the system up and running, that will be the end of it. It would take an enormous amount to dismantle it if it needed to be dismantled and the money put into education. That is why the government is trying to introduce the scheme before the caretaker period. What we are asking the Assembly to do now is to delay its implementation so that the decision is not irreversible. We are not necessarily saying that the scheme should be pulled out.

The difference between last year's debacle and this year's request is that last year we had an all or nothing thing. Members will remember Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries standing up and saying, "It is an all or nothing thing. Either you pass the budget line by line and the total or we will walk." what happened? The bluff was called and the very people over here who screamed convention at you all they screamed convention at you all-

Mr Osborne: You voted against it, too.

MR HARGREAVES: I am also speaking to the vacant chair beside you, Mr Osborne. I am talking to both chairs.

Mr Osborne: We were not the only ones to vote against it.

MR HARGREAVES: No, I acknowledge that this side of the house voted against it, too. Having done that, the government that was saying to the crossbench not to do it because that would be breaching the conventions did not honour the conventions and resign when the budget fell. I am asking the Assembly to delay the implementation of this scheme and not to listen to the spurious argument about breaching conventions. There is none and they have an abysmal record when it comes to honouring conventions in the first place.

Mr Speaker, part of the money that we are talking about is for operating costs and part of the money is for capital expenditure; it is for buses. The government says that these buses will be put onto the school bus routes. That just shows how much this government will stoop to smoke and mirrors to try to hide its own mistakes or its own inactivity. The truth of the story is that the rolling stock of ACTION has been allowed to run down and the government is buying buses under the guise of using them for school buses, because they are used only twice a day, but is planning to use them on ordinary runs during the day.

Why couldn't this government have been honest and said that it is just going to buy buses for ACTION, full stop, end of story? But no, they say that the buses have to go onto the school bus run because it is an educational exercise, although we have had the minister for education getting up and saying that it is not an educational exercise, it is a buses one. I don't know, Mr Speaker who is Tweddledum and who is Tweedledumber here, but they have not got the same message. I am getting conflicting stories here.

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