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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2401 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (12.21): We have heard a lot of hype, a lot of noise, and a lot of self-justification from those opposite. It is that line out of Shakespeare: "Methinks they do protest too much." The opportunity for the SIP to go forward was on 29 June when the budget was presented. That single moment when it could have gone forward was when the vote was called for the health line of the budget. Who saved the health line of the budget, Mr Speaker? It was not the Labor Party. It was, in fact, Kerrie Tucker of the Greens. I acknowledge Kerrie's efforts to save that line of the budget. Kerrie, in that vote, made it clear she was voting for the safe injecting place to go ahead.

Labor abandoned the safe injecting place on that night. No amount of rhetoric, no amount of noise that they can make today in this orgy of self-justification will allow them to shuffle away from the position that they put on the table in the early hours of the morning of the 30th. I remembered the word "tergiversation", and I looked it up. The Clerk gave me the dictionary. Tergiversation means "turning in a dishonourable manner from straightforward action or statement; shifting, shuffling, equivocation, prevarication", and that is all we are getting today, Mr Speaker. We are seeing Labor in their act of tergiversation.

It is a reflection on Jon Stanhope's leadership. We have seen the Labor Party shuffle from disaster to disaster. In an instant, when those opposite could have reversed the trend of Labor opposition to everything that we have done, when they could have sent a clear message to the crossbench that this is a principle above and beyond everything, that they could save the safe injecting place, the Labor Party squibbed it. They walked away from it. They knew what was going to happen, because Ms Tucker bravely saved the health line in the budget, but when we got to that final vote Labor chose to vote against the safe injecting place. It is as simple as that.

Mr Stanhope said in his speech that we have walked away from bipartisanship. Who ran away from it on 29 June and who led the charge? Jon Stanhope. Who walked away that night? Labor did. Who failed to give leadership that night? Jon Stanhope. Who failed those afflicted by drugs? The ALP party room, by blocking the budget. They blocked the budget. They blocked the funding for the safe injecting place.

Where were you when your vote was required, Jon? You were voting against it. When you blocked supply you blocked the safe injecting place. Why are we here today? Because of Labor. It takes nine votes to block anything in this place, and Labor provided six of those, two-thirds of the number required. They provided the base for which nothing else could happen without their agreement or disagreement. They chose in this case not to support the safe injecting place.

It is easy to come back and say, "Oh, gosh, we will do it now." This is their act. You see, when you stand for nothing, you can come back and say, "Well, we will support it now." But when Mr Stanhope talked with the Chief Minister he could not give her a firm Labor Party position. Why not? Because he does not have the confidence or the support of his party room. It is his party room that chose to block the budget. It is his party room that caused us to be here today. No amount of proselytising will change that. You say, "Yes, we voted against it the other night because it was wrapped up in the budget, but we will flip our position and vote for it today." You didn't support it on the 29th, and that is why we are here today.

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