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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 4032 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

Mrs Carnell, of course, may choose to mock my words as often as she likes. She is very good at finding quotes and throwing them back at me, but fundamentally there is a very important role and responsibility for the Opposition to say, "Hang on a minute. This is not right. Hang on a minute. This is wrong. There is an alternative point of view". An Opposition that does not maintain that pressure is an Opposition that is not doing its job. The Opposition does not write the headlines, the Opposition does not edit the news and the Opposition does not choose the quotes that are actually put in the paper; but the Opposition must in all cases where relevant produce the counter-argument, produce the alternative point of view, negate the effect of government activity.

The Opposition, as I have said before, has a fundamentally different role from that of the Independents. The Opposition has never been there to support the Government. The Independents are constantly put in that position through the decisions they make. Will they or will they not support this Government? Will they or will they not worry about the stability of government for the ACT? That is fundamentally different to what the Opposition is there for. The Opposition is there not to let the Government proceed but to challenge at every pass what the Government is doing and what the Government is doing badly and to find points of criticism at every point of relevance.

What we are hearing today is the Government's side of scrutiny. It is very easy to bag it as pure negativity. It is very easy to say that people are just bagging every issue. I would challenge anyone to say that in what we have asked questions about and what we have queried we have been wrong. In most cases there is potential expenditure of public money in ways that we see as inappropriate. We have seen time and again money being given to companies and to projects that have not come through and been fulfilled.

I have never heard the Government apologise for its negativity about Harcourt Hill, about which we heard heaps when we were in government. Now, all of a sudden, they are rubbing their hands together in glee and saying, "Look at this terrible mess. It is all the Labor Government's fault". They were very negative about it when they were in opposition. They chose to stay negative about it in government. They are still negative now, and appropriately so. It was a huge expenditure of public money. The questions that were raised were valid. The outcome is still very serious and it is very important that the then Opposition put its name on the issue and put the issue on the record. Now everyone can say, "We said it would go wrong and it has gone wrong". It was very damaging and unpleasant criticism at the time, because the Harcourt Hill venture was an outstanding venture. It had a lot of potential. It was something that people went into with high hopes. The Opposition at that time rightly chose to criticise it and has now got that on the record.

I could cite any number of similar examples where the negativity has been unpleasant, the criticism has been unpleasant, the applying of the torch to the belly in the good old Neville Wran way has been unpleasant; but it is an essential part of the good workings of government to know that there is a watchdog there at every point, to know that there are people willing to be unpleasant and negative. It is not a role that comes easily, let me tell you. Nobody was elected to the Assembly to whinge, I can assure you. Every one of the 17 members in this chamber was elected because they felt that they could do something to

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