Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

None . . Page.. 660 ..


They have less knowledge of the community respect for the park, and they certainly have no concept of the community’s needs. Their actions in proposing to relinquish responsibility make that very clear. I think it is urgent that Mr Humphries and his Cabinet colleagues start to get a feel for the park. I would suggest that if they have not been out there themselves they engage the officers to take them over some of the park. They need a lot of education, and they need it very quickly indeed.

Mr Kaine: Take them up to the top of Mount Coree.

MR WOOD: Indeed. Mr Kaine has been up to the top of Mount Coree in my company. We have enjoyed the experience of moving around the park. When in government, my Cabinet colleagues and I moved around the park. I do not think we needed to do so to get the feel of it and get the sense of importance of it, but it is obvious that Mr Humphries and Mrs Carnell and others urgently need that.

Mr Humphries was going to hand over management. Today and recently he has been trying to redefine what management means. He was going to give over control of the park. Management means management. He was giving that up. Using the art of rhetoric, subsequently he said, “We might just contract out the cleaning of the toilets and the running of the bookshop”. But management has one clear meaning. Mr Humphries wanted to give up control of the operations of the park. We hear differently this day. He is now trying to say, “That is not really what I mean, folks”. But that is what he was saying early in the piece.

Mr Humphries: No; I have never said that, Bill.

MR WOOD: I saw you quoted - I will never accept totally what I see quoted, of course - as saying that you were giving up management of the park. I think it is shameful that the Government has so little knowledge and so little awareness of what that park means that it would do that. The big problem is that the Government acted in ignorance. That is a very alarming first message that we get. I repeat: Get out there and start to get a feel for the park.

There is another message that is going to be debated throughout the life of this Assembly, and that is that the Government wants to privatise or corporatise or give away much of government activity. That has been made clear in the past and is clear again today. This has been driven by Liberal Party ideology. This is in deliberate contrast with the Chief Minister's oft-quoted words. I heard them recently. She says, “We are not an ideological party. We do what is practical and sensible in the circumstances”. Yet Mr Humphries is out there saying, “Let us examine what we can give away, because that is what the Liberal Party ideology says”. Once again in this issue, as in others, the actions of the Liberals do not match their words, especially those before the election.

There is a third message from this debacle, and that is that it is about time the Government came into this Assembly and said to the community exactly what they are looking at with respect to not just Namadgi, grass cutting and the corporatisation of ACTION, ACTEW and others. Let us have from the Chief Minister a full list of what she is proposing to privatise, corporatise or whatever. I think it is about time she came clean,


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .