Page 1550 - Week 05 - Thursday, 2 June 2022
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fatalistically, it seems, that services are poor and costly and that many things in the ACT do not work properly. Just ask comedian Jimmy Rees who, in his recent send-up of Canberra, said, “And everything will cost 20 per cent more, because it’s Canberra.”
Our public finances are not well understood, and I suspect that there are structural problems that will come home to roost one day. I believe that ministers very often let others do the thinking for them. There are powerful directorates, and ministers do not appear to want to have the fight and stamp themselves on their directorates. Have the fight. Demand more. Don’t be comfortable.
I also feel that we are all in this Assembly increasingly seen and treated as merely a necessary appendage that has to be entertained, not feared or respected, by a bureaucratic administration that largely does what it wants. I tried to get Calvary to appear at estimates, but I never even received a response to my letter from the committee. You each have this power; use it. I am aware of a federal official who begrudgingly came “down to the village”, as he wrote to his colleagues, to explain their statutory role in our estimates process.
We need to push harder because our power must be demonstrated to be credible. We all need to refocus on this place. Make it dynamic and effective; make sure that, whatever government we have in this city, it delivers as well as it can for the people of Canberra.
We the opposition, both in the Assembly and outside, can also do better in holding the government to account. Indeed that should be the opposition’s main job. For a change in government to occur, which really would be healthy for us all, the opposition must be more than “nice people” deliberating on the government’s agenda from the margins in this place. We need to be seen and heard often, as we rigorously hold the government to account, call out every single failure with energy, and engage closer with the media, whilst demonstrating an alternative vision for Canberra and its people. We all need to exit our comfort zones. That is the end of my lecture.
To my electorate, I say thank you. Thank you especially to the quiet people who chat to me in the supermarket, who let me know that they are grateful for my service here. It boosts me to know that we are appreciated by many. It has been my honour to represent you.
Together we have fixed hundreds of problems around the electorate. From the very first small victory, a fence at the end of Hindmarsh Drive to stop the doughys and the rubbish dumping there—thanks, Mr Rattenbury—to the mums, dads and grands that I have worked with to see improvements to playgrounds, roads, footpaths and signage, I thank you. It has been an honour and a privilege to serve you.
During my committee service, there were two reports of which I am particularly proud—the JACS committee’s report into the current police arrangements, and the review of ACT emergency services responses to the bushfire season of 2019-20. Both were released, sadly, during the 2020 election, because we worked so hard on them, but they were pivotal reports from my perspective. I learned a lot while chairing the committee for those inquiries.
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