Page 3847 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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process around the neighbourhood action plan, and people knew then that it was going to close because, in fact, the neighbourhood action plan talks about the closure and the use of that building for community uses. For example, if a library were to be rebuilt into the future, it would possibly go on a certain block of land. So there was notice out there that it was happening.
Then we come to the stage when we were revisiting, as I have explained in this place before, the restructure of the Department of Territory and Municipal Services. I do not see any congratulations coming across from the opposition benches, Mr Speaker, for the amount of reduction in the waste that Mr Mulcahy talks about and the waste that Mr Pratt talks about in the restructure of the Department of Urban Services only 12 months ago. That is because those opposite choose not to recognise some facts. In the first restructure of the Department of Urban Services the first—
Mr Pratt: You sold the—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR HARGREAVES: The very first eight positions to go were SES positions. The eight different silos of the Department of Urban Services were restructured into two—enterprise and municipal services. All of the so-called wastage that Mr Mulcahy and Mr Pratt keep talking about that is supposed to exist today was removed.
Then, of course, we had the integration of other parts of the department such as environment, sustainability, heritage and ACTION. We had the same objective then. We had to remove wastage there, and we did. As part of that whole process we talked about what we were going to do with the library service, because it needed to be restructured—the same as everything else in the department. Of course, it was at that time when the possibility of having a town and group centre library system was discussed. The closure of the Griffith library was always on that agenda. We had those views but we needed to make sure that those views were tested and academically verified. That is why Dr Veronica Lunn was actually engaged.
Mr Smyth: What, don’t you trust the community?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, Mr Smyth interjects and asks why don’t we trust the community. That is a gratuitous remark and an insult to Dr Veronica Lunn, as far as I am concerned. She is an internationally renowned consultant in library services. She is an Australian. She knows the Australian library culture, and for Mr Smyth to suggest that we should just instantly dismiss her thoughts or even her involvement is a low-life act in the extreme.
Mr Smyth: No, not talking to your community is a low-life act.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Smyth!
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I really do need to ask the opposition to just sit back and see this thing in its context. So we have now reached the position where we had a good idea at the time. We have developed it through a range of areas and then we decided to test it. We have had community input all the way along the line and that
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