Page 1165 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991

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Tuggeranong Swimming Pool

MR CONNOLLY: My question is directed to Mr Duby. Minister, six weeks ago today, at a public meeting in Tuggeranong, Mr Stefaniak, as government spokesman, promised that a decision would be made within a month on a public pool for Tuggeranong. Can the Minister inform the Assembly why this has not happened and when some decision can be expected on this matter?

MR DUBY: I thank Mr Connolly for the question. I am not too aware of the meeting that Mr Connolly is referring to, but the Government has made it very clear that an announcement about the Government's provision of swimming facilities at Tuggeranong would be made in the week commencing 25 March. We are sticking to that schedule and I anticipate that I shall be making a statement in that regard next week.

Of course, the Government has never reneged on its commitment to provide a swimming facility at Tuggeranong - unlike your colleagues in the Federal Parliament. Mrs Kelly has been bleating for years about the need for a pool but has been unable to deliver. The same goes for your colleagues who, when in government in 1989, made promises but never delivered on them - although admittedly you are exempt from guilt because you were not part of that Government. This Government has looked at the range of various options available.

Mr Collaery: We inherited a private contract.

MR DUBY: Absolutely. We inherited a contract, which this Government had been locked into by the previous Follett Government, and which, of course, proved to be totally untenable. That contract, as everyone is well aware, was finally deemed to be unacceptable and unfinishable only in October or November of last year and, in a matter of three short months, this Government's hard work has come up with a very outrageous - outstanding - - -

Mrs Grassby: "Outrageous" is the right word for it. What is close to the heart is close to the lips, Mr Duby.

MR DUBY: It is outrageous because of the very fact of the amount of money that we are going to have to commit out of our capital works program in the next financial year to meet commitments that have been made by your colleagues but which have been unfulfilled. I regard that as being an outrageous burden upon the people of the ACT. The fact is that this Government is going to honour that commitment, and that announcement will be made next week, the week commencing on 25 March, as I have already indicated.


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