Page 2871 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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I will speak sternly with them. I honestly will speak very sternly with them. I am hoping that in the context of talking about potholes—Mr Pratt’s favourite subject—it needs to be understood that—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: I do not think that Mr Pratt knows what local roads are. For the benefit of those opposite—I was going to say Dr Foskey, but she is not here—a local road is in fact the very road that Dr Foskey drives upon as we speak not discharging her responsibilities to the people of the electorate of Molonglo. No, she is off on a search for a pothole. A search to Giralang I understand, which is not in her electorate, but she has heard of it as a suburb of some interest; so she has headed off. I confess a disappointment because I had hoped to talk about climate change in a few moments—and I will—but the good doctor is not going to be here; she is off in search of Mr Pratt’s pothole.
Mr Smyth: But you can’t announce government policy.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, quiet please.
MR HARGREAVES: Over the last three financial years we have spent an average of $5 million on local road maintenance. When people criticise this government for its expenditure on road maintenance generally speaking, they forget about the $30 million that is at the base of this. They think about it in terms of top up. They think, “You haven’t put any extra money in.” That is because we have not yet been able to get you your pothole. But we will get you your very one pothole in the suburb that is not in your electorate either.
It is interesting that Mr Pratt scurries around somebody else’s electorate or lives in a different one, not unlike the good Dr Foskey, who, discharging the responsibilities she has to her constituents, is meddling in the constituencies of Mrs Dunne, Mr Stefaniak, the Chief Minister and my colleague, Mary Porter. While we work here representing the people of the ACT, she takes the opportunity to scurry away and contributing—
Mr Smyth: But not you, Mr Speaker—you have been cast asunder; ignored by Mr Hargreaves.
MR SPEAKER: Order! I don’t need your help, Mr Smyth.
MR HARGREAVES: I am corrected by those opposite yet again about the longest serving member for Ginninderra here, the good Speaker. He does not want a pothole because he stands behind Mr Pratt’s request for a pothole. But we will get you one. Fear not; we will get you one. Then we will worry about increasing the road maintenance payment.
Mr Pratt: Is it in the budget papers?
MR HARGREAVES: Your pothole is not in the budget papers, and I apologise for that.
MR PRATT: Mr Speaker, I have a supplementary question. Minister, was your performance during budget estimates due to your failure to master your brief? Why are
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