Page 96 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 May 1989
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visit Washington, DC, which is an example of a national capital with a thriving tourist industry based on its very nature as a national capital. I pray indeed that this city will not do things that will damage the nature of the national capital as a tourist centre.
There are some small items which I shall pick up. I loved the comment about paper products, and I noticed also that Ellnor Grassby referred to paper recycling. You will appreciate I do have a wood chip on my shoulder on this matter. Let us start with ourselves. I am, friends, appalled at the amount of paper that we are receiving. We are not backing up. We are not using two sides. We are using triple spacing. I wrote to our delightful Governor Cuomo figure, Paul Whalan, yesterday or the day before to say how about coming down on some of the paper, and I made a suggestion. I hope that we will reuse paper, reuse envelopes, here in this Assembly. Do not let us just make noises about it; let us do it.
I turn to the subject of education. My colleague Michael Moore has already mentioned some aspects of education. We do rejoice in some of the initiatives of the Government in that matter and the preschool fee, of course, we had also opposed throughout the campaign. I would ask, although it is not mentioned in the Chief Minister's speech, that we do our very best to avoid the playing down of the national role of the Australian National University. I do respect the statements made by the members of the ALP during the campaign, particularly by my friend and colleague Bill Wood, who was very careful on that issue not to support the notion of amalgamation between the ANU and the CCAE.
At this time, as this also does not appear in the Chief Minister's speech - obviously she could not deal with everything - I hope that this Assembly will take to its heart the CCAE and the TAFE sectors of education to make them the very best in this country for tertiary education. There we do have a direct input, direct concern, direct responsibility which we do not have in quite the same way for the Australian National University.
You will understand this next area I need to talk about. It is not one discussed in the Chief Minister's statement, and it is to do with ageing. Now I ask all of you young people, including our delightfully youthful Chief Minister, to consider the aged. Might I relate that to our tourist industry. Let us hope that tourists from around the world will come to see the happiest, most fresh faced, best housed, most creative senior citizens in the world.
Busloads of young people will arrive in Canberra to gaze in awe at our aged people - forgive my selfish interest in this matter. But especially let us stress the social and psychological setting for the aged in their own homes or in their children's homes, or in suitable developments like the present Mirinjani which is close to shops and facilities, like the present Goodwin Homes or Wakefield
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