Page 4878 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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"Sorry, you are going to miss out on the possibility of the value of those three days' education. One of the options you have is to go and spend three days basically in the bottom of a carpark" - that is, in effect, one of the options - is simply not good enough.
At its very best it is an incredibly insensitive way to deal with people who have just been told, "You are not going to get your school; it is not going to stay open", when the only crime for that school is that it happens to have missed an arbitrary figure that Mr Hudson drew of 200, an arbitrary figure which he did not in any sense justify. Cook happens to come under that 200 figure, and what this Alliance Government needs to realise is that the people of Cook - and there was a similar meeting at Lyons earlier in the week - and the people of Lyons are not going to see this as the end of the debate. As far as they are concerned, the debate is just beginning. They have the support of the TLC and congratulations, I say, to the unions for making a stand on this.
What is going to happen is that the Alliance Government is going to realise that one of two groups is going to suffer in this debate. The people who are going to suffer most in this are not going to be the children and the parents and the citizens and residents of Cook; in fact, it is going to cause a great deal more pain to the Alliance Government than it is to them. The Government's thought that this debate is coming towards an end is absolute nonsense. The debate is just beginning, and I will continue doing what I can to assist the people of Cook and the people of Lyons, in particular.
Personal Explanation : Cook Primary School
MR WOOD (5.32): When I was upstairs a little while ago and heard my name coming across the loudspeakers, it seemed reasonable to think that that must have been during the adjournment debate. Why else would Mr Collaery be raising my name?
I want to make the point that in a radio program a little while ago - and Mr Collaery has since spoken to me about it - he made an assertion that I had voted contrary to my own wishes. I would suggest that, if Mr Collaery thinks about it, he would not want me to go on radio and say that he voted a certain way contrary to his own wishes. I would respectfully ask you, Mr Collaery, to let me make statements on the way I vote.
As to those comments a short time ago, I am a willing and active and involved participant in the ALP. I find it a party of great vigour. It is one in which people are freely able to express their views as we come to the consensus that brings about the decisions we take. The remarks you made totally lack any sort of understanding of
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