Page 2483 - Week 07 - Monday, 15 August 2022
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Members interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Members! You have stood on your feet and said, “This is a serious matter,” so, please do not then continue laughing. If you must do that, if you cannot control yourself, you can take yourself outside.
MR GENTLEMAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker. They are still the same old washed-up conservatives as they have always been. It says a lot that the Leader of the Opposition has such little faith in her own budget reply that the only way she thinks she can score a political win is by painting the government as divided.
The Canberra community can see through these stunts, Ms Lee, and they are not impressed. The Treasurer has delivered a strong budget that focuses on the future of Canberra. The same cannot be said for the opposition.
This motion of no-confidence is nothing more than a political stunt by an opposition so listless and misguided that the best criticism of the budget they can offer is to try and censure the Treasurer. The opposition should be ashamed of themselves.
The Chief Minister has my full confidence and the full confidence of this government. All that the opposition has achieved through this stunt is to waste the Assembly’s time, and they should be ashamed.
MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Deputy Chief Minister, Minister for Early Childhood Development, Minister for Education and Youth Affairs, Minister for Housing and Suburban Development, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (9.34): I want to speak briefly on this motion today and suggest that it is probably one of the most ridiculous actions by the Canberra Liberals so far! I thought it was a motion of no-confidence in the Chief Minister, but there was a lot of conversation about what the Greens Party were doing right or wrong and whether the Chief Minister had their support. Well, he clearly has their support because the Chief Minister has managed an excellent budget which is being delivered, hopefully, with the support of our Greens political party colleagues, who, despite everything that the Canberra Liberals have tried to describe today, have more in common with ACT Labor than the Canberra Liberals think. That is why we are able to work so closely together.
I believe the Canberra Liberals should do the work of the opposition and hold the government to account. That is appropriate. But it is not appropriate to waste the time of the Assembly on something so silly like this. They really need to stop it and get on to the work of being an actual legitimate opposition in this space.
It is clear that Andrew Barr, the Chief Minister, has confidence of ACT Labor and the Greens political party—that is, both of us working together. I know Mr Hanson went on about processes across other governments in Australia. Well, actually assemblies get to set precedents and precedents change over time.
So, we can do that and do things differently in the ACT, with the support of the Assembly, to make things in this place work more cooperatively in a way where we engage more people in the decision-making processes of government.
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