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| Mike Elliott Leader Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
Parliament Index |
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Legislative
Council |
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| Mike Elliott Leader Australian Democrats Member of the Legislative Council |
Parliament Index |
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Adjourned debate on second reading ( resumed on motion).
The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: On behalf of the Democrats, I support the second reading. It was not all that long ago-in fact, 1997-when we had other legislation before this place which was also referred to a select committee.
If one looks at the history of the Netherby Kindergarten, one can see why people have such concern about development in the parklands. Once there is an alienation, a real danger exists that the alienation will become permanent. During World War II the commonwealth used its powers to construct buildings on the land which was part of the Waite Trust. After the war, the buildings were used for other purposes, in particular, as a kindergarten, which then settled in there for a considerable number of years. On discovering that there were some difficulties with that, the government sought to regularise that through the Netherby Kindergarten (Variation of Waite Trust) Act 1997.
I want to make quite clear that the Democrats do not believe that the site is an appropriate place for a kindergarten despite what the local member chose to insinuate by selective quoting of my comments in parliament on a previous occasion. However, we recognised that the kindergarten was already established and, from my recollection as a member of the select committee, no alternative was offered. It is fair to say that, whilst the Democrats believed that the kindergarten should not be on that site, in the absence of any alternative we had to accept it as an alienation that was likely to become permanent.
I find it particularly annoying that the member for Waite seeks to misrepresent our view on that. Anybody who knows our view in terms of greenspace generally would know what our views are. However, for his own mischievous purposes, he seeks to suggest that we had a different view.
That aside, it has now become apparent that the government has suddenly discovered that there is an alternative site. The fact that the kindergarten needs to be rebuilt because they are still using the old World War II buildings provides an opportunity to move to that alternative site. The Democrats welcome that and are happy to support the second reading of this bill.
