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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (1 April) . . Page.. 1193 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

This differential will increase to more than 47 per cent after five years. If neither property is sold, the differential will be more than 70 per cent after 10 years. The people at 14 Grainger Circuit, after 10 years, will be paying $764, but the poor people at 16 Grainger Circuit will be paying $1,307, or 70 per cent more than the people next door. This is the new Treasurer's notion of equity.

Mr Hargreaves: He is not new anymore.

MRS DUNNE: He still has his training wheels on when it comes to working out things like equity and how to come up with an equitable rating system. Lord help him if he ever takes his training wheels off. He really will crash and burn. This is a crash-and-burn proposal. This Treasurer may not crash and burn over it, but the people of Canberra will. This is not equity. If the Treasurer calls this equity, he is raising Humpty Dumpty semantics to a new height.

MR SPEAKER: The discussion is concluded.

Adjournment

Motion (by Mr Quinlan ) proposed:

CFMEU

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (6.13): Mr Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise in the place in the adjournment debate wearing the badge of the CFMEU, as Ms Gallagher pointed out during question time. I am very pleased to wear the badge, because it was presented to me by members of the union a couple of weeks ago when they very generously handed over a vehicle worth about $41,000 to the Guises Creek Volunteer Bush Fire Brigade. The vehicle is a Holden Rodeo dual-cab four-wheel-drive. It was mainly paid for by the CFMEU, with assistance by the Kingston Hotel and Gary Robb and Associates. On behalf of the brigade and all volunteers in the ACT, I would like to say thank you. I am happy to say thank you, Comrade Berry.

The idea grew out of the night of 18 January, when members of the Guises Creek brigade were standing at the shed without vehicles in which to go to fight fires. Somebody said, "God, wouldn't it be useful if we had an extra vehicle."Jim Bodsworth, captain of the emergency services section of the brigade, is cross-trained to wear both the orange and the yellow overalls. Leading up to 18 January and in the weeks following, he wore the yellow overalls as a bushfire fighter and did fabulously well. In his spare time he was on the phone talking to a number of organisations which virtually on the spot agreed to help fund the new vehicle for my brigade.

The response of the CFMEU in this case was absolutely fabulous. The new vehicle gives us increased capacity. On the night following 18 January we talked about how we could do things better and what we would do. One of the things we came up with was an additional slip-on unit-a small pump and a tank slipped on the back of a ute. We also came up with the concept of point defence kits-a locker with a standpipe, a set of hoses and some nozzles-so that volunteers with hoses can be stationed at the front of houses and further the good work volunteers do.

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