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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Wednesday, 10 March 2004) . . Page.. 1014 ..

You have to have something here for private members day. You ask, “What can we do?” You get a bright spark of an idea and you write down some words. You said there had been no consultation. What nonsense you went on with! You do not consult; you just write out some words and then circulate them. If private members day is to come up with constructive ideas, as we would all wish, on this and a whole range of other matters, I think there is scope for a whole lot of cooperation and coordination before things emerge onto the floor.

Except for a few people over there, everybody has confidence in what the recovery centre has done, and there are outstanding reasons for that confidence. What they have done is a landmark—it sets the example. They have set the example by saying that it is time to move on, and in the way they have talked to the people who have gone in—they know them darned well by this time. They have recognised that it is time to move on. They have done it very well, as with everything else. I think you should accept that, crawl back into a hole and say, “We goofed on this one.”

MRS DUNNE (5.33): If we prick them, do they not bleed? The touchiness of the government over this motion is breathtaking.

Mr Wood: That is primary school banter. Get on with it!

MRS DUNNE: The splenetic outburst of Mr Wood over this is really inappropriate. Most of what has been said here today has been highly supportive of the recovery centre.

Mr Wood: Except the motion itself.

MRS DUNNE: No-one denies the wonderful work being done —

Mr Wood: You all spoke very nicely but the motion itself is not of that order. That is absolutely right. You cannot deny that. Now carry on.

MRS DUNNE: I would actually ask rhetorically, Mr Speaker, which parts of the phrase “notes the considerable contribution made by the bushfire recovery centre” does the minister not understand? This is really about consulting with and listening to the community.

The report of the bushfire recovery task force came out last year and it was made known that the recovery centre would be closed in March. When people from Duffy and other places came to me to talk about issues related to the bushfire and I said to them, “Do you know that the government is going to close the recovery centre in March?” It was greeted with universal horror. There were by no means hundreds but there were dozens of people I spoke to on this issue. The people we deal with as members here are probably at the harder end. I agree with much of what Mr Stanhope has said. Many people have moved on and have taken control of this.

We salute those people because what they have done has been exceedingly hard. But there are many people—they may not be a majority; they may be a relatively small number of the 1,000 or so clients of the recovery centre—who have not moved on and who do not know what is happening at the recovery centre despite letters having been

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