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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (11 March) . . Page.. 622 ..

MR BERRY

Then it was decided that another use might be appropriate, blade skating, and a little fence was put up. I understand that cost about $30,000 and that is stored away somewhere. Pretty soon we will have a huge debt accruing because of all these storage places used for storing these bits and pieces that we stick onto the futsal slab from time to time. In the scheme of things, it is not much money, but it tells you all you need to know about the way the Government operates. That is what it tells us. If they are prepared to do that with a little bit of money, well, you can back it in that they are doing it with a lot.

Yesterday one of my colleagues mentioned the Acton-Kingston land swap. All that has ever done is cost us money, continuing money, and there is more to come. It will not stop. We heard much about the Feel the Power campaign. It may have had its last whimper, although I did glimpse a couple of Feel the Power badges around here on the other side. Where is yours, Mr Hird? Have you got on Feel the Power? No, you have not got it on. That is a bit disloyal.

Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, this Feel the Power campaign has had its last whimper, I hope, because it has been one of the most unpopular things impacted on this place. The Feel the Power aeroplane had difficulty making all of its flights and, as was mentioned by my leader, there was the Woodies match. I think I said at the time that the sponsoring of the Woodies by ACT Forests seemed to be a natural placement. They fitted well together - Woodies and forests. I said at the time, "It is just as well they never got Pat Cash to play a demonstration match here, otherwise the Treasury would have been involved", and you would never know how much money was going to be spent if that was the case. Then there was the Sydney office. The latest tourism initiative from the Chief Minister is to offer to climb the flagpole naked if that will attract two or three. I could tell the Chief Minister that I think that would be about as popular as the Feel the Power numberplates and I would not try it on. It would be a waste of her time. She would be better off knitting or something like that.

In all of these cases taxpayers' money was spent on ill-considered projects that were seen as favourites of this Chief Minister who does not worry about the bottom line and who has been supported by others in the Assembly. We have also had questions about taxes and charges and how unfair some of those have been, and the bad management, the lack of consultation, and ignorance of their own charter to the community on consultation. How many times have we seen that fall apart, notwithstanding the 10-second media grab to launch it? There were cuts to youth centres which dared to raise questions or to disagree with the Chief Minister.

We have also heard the cries of those in the community affected by the insurance levy, which I mentioned earlier, and the emergency levy, and these people are often the most vulnerable, people on fixed incomes and on pensions. Then there were the increased bus fares for certain school students. That still lingers for this Minister for Urban Services who has had some difficulty with the matters which he has had to deal with. He has had difficulty with buses. He has had difficulty with Feel the Power numberplates. He had no difficulty voting for a motion of grave concern in himself yesterday. He voted for that fairly enthusiastically, which was quite puzzling. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, I think what we see here is essentially a rabble.

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