Page 3889 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006

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signed by me. The handwriting is different. The minister justified his conduct by saying that it was all a conspiracy; it was all planned out.

The truth of the matter, Mr Speaker, is that you and your parliamentary colleagues from the Labor Party know that the minister has made a fair hash of this effort. He has inflicted electoral damage on three ministerial colleagues who are no doubt cringing with embarrassment and concern at the damage this has caused. In contrast, I have never seen Mr Barr conduct himself with discourtesy in the interesting debate on the school closures. People have been treated with absolute contempt.

The minister talked about the constituents. He said that the children were “spiked by their parents”. What a contemptuous term to use when people from the Griffith community and their families express a concern. Does the minister honestly think that people’s children do not read books and do not have a view about the importance of libraries?

In conclusion, I did not intend to speak on this matter until about 9.30 this morning. I certainly did not plan to move a censure motion. It was the remarkable behaviour of the minister, capped by his performance this morning and backed up by what I see as a growing disregard for the people in my electorate that led me to the view that we just have to bring the sort of behaviour to the attention of the Assembly and the people of Canberra.

I mentioned the Italian collection of literature. The minister said that it is going to Woden. Again I ask: what consultations occurred with the Italian community, who have a particular interest in that collection of work? There was no reference to that. If you can support that decision, I will be very pleased to know that that has occurred. I am pleased that for the first time Dr Foskey has supported a motion of censure, because I think Dr Foskey is coming from the same perspective as I am on this matter in that she is very disturbed about the dismissive nature of the minister’s response to constituents.

On that note I will conclude my remarks. Although government members have declared they will not support this motion, I hope they will heed the fact that this sort of conduct does not enhance the standing of the minister or the government.

Question put:

That Mr Mulcahy’s motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

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