Page 2000 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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Mrs Carnell: In the fullness of time.
MR BERRY: Indeed, in the fullness of time achieving an appropriate public service for the ACT. I might add, Madam Speaker, that we have a quality public service in the ACT, and it is in all of our interests to ensure that we develop arrangements which maintain that quality for the benefit of the people of the ACT.
MR KAINE: I have a supplementary question, Madam Speaker. Since everything that Mr Berry has said is about the future - what we might do, or will do, or may be - can we then assume that, unlike many other occasions when he jumps into our boots in terms of policy implementation, in this case he has taken no specific initiatives in industrial relations in connection with this matter?
MR BERRY: Again Mr Kaine has it wrong. We would never want to jump into their boots on the issue of industrial relations because they are complete confrontationalists. All that they are about is reducing the wages and working conditions of Australian workers, including the ones that apply in the ACT.
Mr Kaine: I have reduced nobody's wages, Minister.
MR BERRY: You are a great supporter of the "frightpack", and there will be more on that later. There will be much more on that later because we need to point out to the people of the ACT the charade of the local Liberals as they peddle the big lie, the GST. You can back it in, Mr Kaine, that we will not be jumping into your boots. We have our own policies, and they are the ones that we will implement.
Garbage Bins
MS ELLIS: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister for Urban Services. Minister, there has been much discussion over the past few months about the adoption of a new policy for the collection of household garbage. What is the ACT Government doing about garbage bins?
MR CONNOLLY: I thank Ms Ellis for the question. Indeed, there has been much debate about bins in this Assembly for the whole life of self-government. Members opposite, of course, have a strange fascination for the big bin, the 240-litre bin. They like to be photographed in it and on it. Members of the Liberal Party who did not do so well in preselection seem to be wheeled out of the building in the bins by other members who did rather better.
The Labor Government has always opposed the 240-litre big bins on environmental grounds. We have come up with a compromise solution which preserves the advantage of the wheeled bin - the convenience, particularly for elderly members of the community - while cutting down on the obvious risk to recycling of the vast 240-litre bins. We will be trialling later this year in the suburb of Kaleen a collection service which will provide two bins, each of 140 litres. The bins are the same height as the 240-litre bin, and thus as convenient for the resident. One bin will be a general garbage bin. The other bin will take recyclables.
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