Page 1237 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
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But again it is a reflection of the calibre of the backbench over there. They were not ministers and now they have all got to go and do penance, which is being on the estimates committee to cover Jon Stanhope’s ineptitude. Ms MacDonald said in the debate, “Oh, you didn’t make my life easy.” Well, perhaps that is a reflection on your abilities. That is all it is. Perhaps it is a reflection on your own ineptitude. At one end you’re not a minister. You can almost smell the fear, Mr Speaker, of them being found out. You can almost smell the fear, and they are going to do everything—spray deodorant, air freshener, around—to make things look beaut, and they are going to control it. Welcome to the central soviet, the supreme soviet of the ACT.
We have had corruption of the committee system under this government. We have had the tossing out of tradition by this government. We have had many, many attempts to shut down appropriate scrutiny by this government. But are we dismayed? No, we are not. We will battle on. We will keep going. We will make sure that the public know exactly, despite all your denials, the state of your budget, as we have forecast for the last three years.
Ministers cannot scrutinise themselves, and the argument that “we have the numbers” falls down. Ministers cannot scrutinise themselves; they have responsibility for the money that is received. You cannot change the number of Labor members that can effectively be on this committee, from the standing orders—unless you want to amend the standing orders as well. “Let us get rid of a couple of the others. Why don’t we get rid of 224? That is a good one. Let us get rid of 224, maybe get rid of 225 (a); let us just get rid of anything that we want to get rid of—because we can.”
There is real potential here of not canvassing all of the issues. As we saw last year, when somebody starts to put the pressure on a minister the chair shuts it down. We have set up a system where votes may be tied three-three, but there is real potential that we might actually not get to the stage of electing a chair because, despite the amendment, you cannot make us vote for a Labor member. You cannot make me give my vote away that cheaply. You cannot force me to vote for somebody that I do not want to choose. That has been a valid argument from those facing the electoral commission for not voting in an election: that there was not someone on the ballot paper that represented their view.
MR SMYTH: So the real potential here is that you might not get a chair. There is a real potential that we will be hung on the issues.
Members interjecting—
MR SMYTH: There is a real potential that the report may be so pro-government and so biased that you might not get the committee to actually vote to deliver the report. What we have done is set up a farce. This is a farce in motion.
Members interjecting—
MR SMYTH: This is Mr Corbell’s idea of democracy and justice. This is Mr Stanhope’s idea of how to run the territory.
Opposition members interjecting—
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