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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4318 ..

MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, we are talking about hundreds and hundreds of jobs at Campbell Park going to his mate out at the airport, whereas 140 are going to Gungahlin. With this motion we are trying to stop those changes being perpetrated by the NCA and Mr Tuckey unilaterally which prevent jobs going to Gungahlin, Brindabella and Tuggeranong, in particular.

I will reiterate what representatives of the Property Council had to say when I went and saw them. I sat down and had a nice sandwich with them and we just talked generally. They said to me that they wanted to see employment opportunities provided in west Civic, not at the airport. They are representing people who have money invested in this town and quite a number of them-not just one-are prepared to invest in this town. They are saying that their priorities are the town centres and west Civic.

Mr Speaker, it is pretty clear to me that the people of the ACT want to see a fair share of the cake distributed around the town centres. We want to be able to create job opportunities for our kids so that they will not have to get in a car and go interstate and they will not have to get in a car and go to Civic or Belconnen; they can go to work in their own backyard. But that is not going to happen while ever the NCA and the territory minister unilaterally review something as basic and as fundamental as the Y-plan.

I did not hear mention of the Y-plan once in the Leader of the Opposition's speech. All I heard was a stack of bile against me. What did we have from the shadow Minister for Planning and hopeful deputy leader of the Liberal Party? We had nothing but spew and bile against me. If it is an offence to stand up for my electorate in Brindabella and say that I want jobs there, I am guilty as charged. Hard luck! I am absolutely disgusted with the actions of a fellow member for Brindabella whom I had thought had the interests of his electorate at heart-as well as the interests of the rest of the people in the ACT, because, after all, he has been shoved into the job of Leader of the Opposition, and a poisoned chalice it is, too, but I wish him well in the job, and he is going to need it-as I really think that he ought to stop being fixated on the airport and ought to look at the equitable distribution of opportunities round this town, remembering that charity begins at home.

Motion agreed to.

Aged day-care facilities

MR CORNWELL (8.58): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) calls upon the Government to review its decision to close the two aged day care centres at Dickson and Narrabundah pending consultation with stakeholders, including carers and the local community;

(2) further calls upon the Government not to proceed with the closure and transfer of users until the results of the review and community consultation have been presented and debated by the Assembly; and

(3) further calls upon the Government to present the review and community consultation findings to the Assembly no later than 13 March 2003.

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