Page 559 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 14 March 2007
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and then implemented promptly. I do not believe that approach was justified then and there is no rationale whatsoever for taking the same approach now.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (4.31): First of all, Mr Speaker, I would like to move the amendment circulated in my name. I move:
Omit all words after “accommodation”, substitute:
“(d) that no decisions will be taken by the Government until advice is provided on the best use of any surplus Government property.”.
Before I go into detail, I would like to address some of the things that Dr Foskey said. She has called for a cost-benefit analysis to be available for comment. The Greens are not part of the governance of this territory—they are part of the parliament of this territory. In fact, they received only 12 per cent of the vote in one of the electorates and they were rejected entirely in the other two. That tells me that the Greens party has been rejected by the community in two electorates and been rejected by 88 per cent of the electorate in the third. So nothing will convince me that the Greens party has any mandate at all from the community.
We may have a discussion with those opposite about community issues and community consultation, because at least they have a mandate from a substantial part of the electorate. The Greens have no such thing. In fact, they have had no such thing for at least the three elections that I have been involved with in this place. This is just a political ruse to take the promise to reopen schools to the 2008 election. Mr Speaker, the Liberals may very well attempt to do that—and we would probably try that, too, if we were in the same position—but the Greens will never be in a position to make one decision in government. They will never have one. The Greens ought to understand that the schools are closed. They are closed, the doors are closed and the resources have gone elsewhere—they have gone into the education system. I just wish they would understand that even the students have gone somewhere else.
Dr Foskey, speaking on behalf of ACTCOSS, said that the government is pushing community groups out of Civic. Well, tell that to the 30 community groups sitting in the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre; tell that to the people in the newly refurbished Griffin Centre. The fact is that ACTCOSS is having to move out of Civic because of a leasing arrangement. And to whom did they turn for assistance? They turned to the government. The government, recognising that this is a community advocacy group, who we appear to be paying to belt us, offered two premises fairly quickly—one at Ainslie Village and one in the former Griffith library. The government has come, as it were, to the rescue. So I reject absolutely and vehemently this notion—this silly, silly notion—that we are pushing community groups out of Civic. What an absolutely absurd and silly notion.
Mr Speaker, on the closure of schools: three preschools and seven primary schools were closed at the end of the 2006 school year. Of these, the Causeway preschool in Kingston has been transferred to the Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services to be utilised for community education programs. It did not come to TAMS. The remainder of the sites were declared surplus by the Department
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