Page 4231 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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MR DE DOMENICO: No, Mr Lamont; I am bagging your Government. This Government decision has cost this community $3.3m. I am bagging the Government that will not let loose details about how we have given irrevocable $25m guarantees that are not given to local developers. That is whom I am bagging, Mr Lamont. I am also bagging the fact that people opposite stand up and heap praise on Mr Stefaniak and Mr Kaine because it suits them to do so at the moment. If it were worth their while, I bet you that they would do the exact opposite. Let us not have any of that nonsense.
This debate is all about the fact that the people opposite us are too arrogant to realise that they should not sit back and smile amongst themselves and believe that everything is okay; because it is not okay, notwithstanding what this report says. It says very little. There is nothing in this report that tells me that Mr Wood's department wrote to members who saw fit to ask questions about the Comcare premium having doubled from one year to another. It has doubled, and that is in writing from Mr Wood's department. Do we hear Mr Wood say to the Chief Minister, "Let us get rid of Comcare."? No; of course he does not say that, because, as on other occasions, Mr Wood is quite prepared to sit there on his hands, do nothing, make no decisions and handpass the ball to somebody else, thinking that one day the problems might go away. We have seen that time and time again. This report does not go anywhere near saying what it should say. It should be saying that this is an arrogant government that will be brought to book by the people of the ACT come February.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Heritage and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.45): Madam Speaker, this has been a remarkable debate. I have been a member of this Assembly now for close to six years. I saw the Alliance Government fall apart, as internal tensions caused it to lose the support of the Assembly, and the very sensible Follett Government take over. I wonder whether we are now seeing the Liberal Party fall apart in the same way as the Alliance Government collapsed. I have seen in the last 15 minutes two speakers - that is, Mr Humphries and Mr De Domenico - stand up and bag their two colleagues Mr Kaine and Mr Stefaniak. They stood up and said, "You two are incompetent; you delivered us an appalling report". They said all sorts of things; but it is, in total, a vote of no confidence by two members of the Liberal Party in respect of two other members of the Liberal Party. It is an absolutely remarkable thing. I have not seen it in the three years of this parliament. We have to go back to the first parliament to see a comparable situation.
Mr Lamont: And then Mr De Domenico bags his own leader as well.
MR WOOD: Absolutely. Mr De Domenico is trying to retrieve some ground, and he has failed absolutely to do so.
Madam Speaker, I understood that it was intended that this debate should close, but I should make some comments on the Harcourt Hill development. I had actually marked off parts of the committee's report so that I could stand up, if we had had more time, and highlight all those areas where it acknowledges the good work of the department, of the Minister and of the Government. Mr De Domenico had something to say about decisions. Let me tell you about one of the decisions of which I am very proud. It is a very significant decision, and one which the Liberal Party would not take.
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