Page 2689 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 21 September 2022
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Mr Parton: Yes, but I will pay for it. I will pay for it.
Ms Lawder: Not the taxpayer.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Cain): Thank you, members.
MR BARR: As for being paid, your entire existence in this place, Mr Parton, is taxpayer funded, so let us not kid ourselves that all of the time—
Mr Parton: I know it is fundraising money. It is fundraising money, mate.
MR BARR: that you spend undertaking all of your various stunts is not entirely taxpayer funded.
Mr Parton: “Stunts”?
MR BARR: Well, that is what this is, and that is certainly what the TikTok videos and all the other stuff are—all taxpayer funded! So let us not come in here and give everyone a lecture that you are somehow doing all of this with no taxpayers’ assistance, all on your own time.
Mr Parton: I think you have got a bigger team than me, buddy. I think you have got a bigger team than me.
MR BARR: Well, we are the government.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Parton, I am close to warning you.
MR BARR: We do have responsibilities. I think the irony of all of this is that, on any other given sitting day, one of Mr Parton’s colleagues will come in and complain about a lack of consultation or not enough information being provided. I am sure that, were we to support Mr Parton’s motion, there would be complaints about not receiving sufficient information from the government in printed form. The opposition would be the first to say, “You have cut back on your communication with the people of Canberra.” I have been in this place long enough to have seen exactly that process.
Let us be clear that the newsletter is one of many ways that the government engages with the community and keeps people up to date. They include websites, social media, traditional media, email newsletters, radio and television, advertising, and physical notices placed in various locations. What I can advise the Assembly is that the Our Canberra print newsletter consistently ranks as one of the most preferred methods for Canberrans to receive government communication.
In the 2021 ACT government community priorities survey conducted on the YourSay community panel, the Our Canberra newsletter ranked as the second most preferred method for Canberrans to receive government information. In fact, the survey found that older Canberrans, those 65 and over, were most likely to mention Our Canberra as the channel they used to keep informed about the issues in the area in which
they live.
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