Page 3098 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022
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witnessing right now—Labor and the Greens working together as a cabinet and a government to pass the budget? If this is what they call it, I would hate to see the opposite. Guarantee of supply is fundamental to stable government. What we are witnessing today, and since the Treasurer delivered his budget, is anything but. This is a hopelessly dysfunctional government.
I would ask the Chief Minister, through you Mr Assistant Speaker Cain: is Mr Rattenbury continuing in his role on the ERC? The ERC is made up of three members, of which Mr Rattenbury is one, who consider all expenditure, revenue, capital, savings and investment proposals. How can Mr Rattenbury continue in that role and how does Mr Barr trust Mr Rattenbury to continue in that role? The principle of cabinet solidarity, the bedrock of our Westminster system, has been totally undermined by this move from the Greens. How embarrassing for the Chief Minister that he cannot rely on or control the junior party in his uneasy power-sharing agreement.
Only days ago Mr Barr valiantly fought for Mr Rattenbury and told this Assembly what a wonderful minister he is. Even if, as Mr Barr has indicated, he does not care and he is not affected by this move by the Greens, how on earth does he trust the Greens after this, when he knows, and the Greens know, that the opposition will vote for this budget item and both Mr Barr and Mr Rattenbury can rest easy? The mere fact that Mr Barr needs—not gets but needs—the votes from the opposition to pass his budget in full is a complete and utter embarrassment. Make no mistake.
What then for the next budget? What will the Greens hold this government to ransom on next? The true test of the Greens’ principles will be whether they pull the same stunt on an item of expenditure where they know that there is no guarantee that the opposition will support it. What this move by the Greens, and indeed the Labor response to this move by the Greens, proves very clearly is that both Labor and the Greens will do whatever it takes to retain their tenuous grip on power. It is Canberrans that pay the price for this.
MR PARTON (Brindabella) (4.57): There are stakeholders, there are key workers in the racing industry, who have communicated with me in the last 10 minutes who watched Ms Clay’s speech and who are absolutely gobsmacked. One of them said, “What does she mean?” I will sit down and talk to some people afterwards.
In every other jurisdiction of Australia the Greens are a protest party. In every other part of Australia the Greens are a fringe party that carp on the sidelines about what the adults should be doing. This is the only place in the country where this group of people have been given this much power and this is why it is so dangerous. The Greens have a vision of how all of us should live, of the pastimes that we should enjoy and the way that we should go about our lives, and they wish to stop the rest of us doing the things that give us joy if those things do not align with their values.
Horseracing is actually a part of the fabric of Australia, whether Ms Clay likes it or not. It is a part of who we are as a nation—so much so that when the Albanese government chose 10 everyday Australians to attend the funeral of Her Majesty the Queen, among those chosen was Chris Waller, the trainer of Winx.
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