Page 1411 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 1 May 1990
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AINSLIE TRANSFER STATION
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Stefaniak): I have received a letter from Ms Follett proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The need to retain the Ainslie Transfer Station.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (3.43): Mr Deputy Speaker, with every passing day the people of Canberra are realising more and more the mistake that they made in voting for the members opposite. There is very little that we can say about the disappointment of the people who voted for the No Self Government Party, except perhaps that it was clear that many of them did so because they were fearful that services to their community would suffer, and how right they were. With the decision to close the Ainslie Transfer Station those people have been stabbed in the back by the people they elected. As for the Residents Rally, it has taken somewhat longer, but people are realising more and more that its claim to represent the interests of local residents is an absolute fiction. It has totally given in to the dictates of the Liberal Party and its business mates.
The closure of the Ainslie Transfer Station is only the latest example of the way this Government operates, but it is the starkest example that we have had so far. There has been no consultation, no regard for the needs of the community, a total lack of a coherent, overall approach to making policy.
This decision was quite deliberately announced on a day when media and public attention was distracted by other events in this Assembly and by the Anzac Day commemoration. It was also deliberately announced with only six days before it became effective so that there would be little opportunity for public opinion to be expressed. The Government was terrified to hear from the public on this matter, as on so many others. Quite simply, Mr Deputy Speaker, there has been absolutely no consultation with the people affected by this decision. Not once has Mr Kaine or Mr Duby said to the residents of north Canberra or to the workers whose jobs have been destroyed that this action was being considered.
Anybody who is interested in the subject would have been led to expect exactly the opposite to what has happened. After all, Government members were in the majority on the Assembly committee which recommended an expansion of the facilities at the transfer station. A Government member chaired that committee. It is all there in black and white, as I pointed out at question time. It was recommended in that report that the Government "investigate the possibility of establishing oil collection points at the Ainslie transfer station".
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