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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1836 ..

MR HARGREAVES: I was addressing the amendment. We are talking about whether there should have been any amendment and a motion such as this. The Chief Minister has come into this chamber and advised everybody that he did not do something. We are now holding him up and saying, “You’re a ratbag because you didn’t do something and you should have done it.”

If this place starts moving motions expressing grave concern about things that people came in here and admitted to, then we are in dire straights. The bar is low. These people here have dropped the bar; they have dropped the bar too low. It is so low even the Leader of the Opposition could step over it—and that is a low bar.

This is denigrating for this Assembly. You guys denigrate it professionally. You are professionals at denigrating this place. Sometimes you amaze me. I would never support a no-confidence motion in the Chief Minister in any event, but I cannot support the dropping of it down to this.

The Chief Minister has come into this place and told us about it. If he had not done this, none of us would have been any the wiser. Instead of saying, “You ratbag” we ought to be saying, “Thanks for that information”. What have you done about it? Have I heard that once? No; I cannot support this. I cannot support the no-confidence motion and I cannot support the amendment.

MRS DUNNE (5.04): I, like the rest of my colleagues, am reluctant to support this amendment but will be doing so, but not with as much reluctance as government members have in supporting their Chief Minister.

MR SPEAKER: I think you have already spoken to the question.

MRS DUNNE: I have not spoken to the amendment, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: I will just check our records.

MRS DUNNE: No; I have spoken once only.

MR SPEAKER: Yes; you spoke after Ms Dundas and you were seen to be speaking to both the motion and the amendment. You will need leave to speak.

MRS DUNNE: I seek leave to speak again.

MR SPEAKER: Leave is granted, Mrs Dunne.

MRS DUNNE: I reluctantly support this amendment, but not with the same reluctance as members of the government have in supporting their Chief Minister today. I am reluctant to do it simply because of the words used by Ms Dundas herself. She said that what the Chief Minister did, as the acting minister for emergency services, was inexcusable. They were her words. But Ms Dundas then sadly created an excuse. The doctrine and the standard insisted upon by Mrs Cross—that ministerial responsibility is absolute—is what we should be applying here.

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