Page 676 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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Mr Smyth: Well, you deserve it.
MR STANHOPE: And you say this is a very rare and serious motion, the motion of no confidence. You moved one last week; you move another one this week. They are just confetti—another day, another motion of no confidence. You have destroyed executive business for the morning. You did not allow the government to vote on and pass legislation. They are still there on the notice paper, waiting. If you wanted to move a motion, if you wanted to do a stunt like this, you can do that on private members day. You do not destroy the business of government. There were two bills to be debated and passed today—a financial management act and a procurement act. We are not going to get to them because of your repetitive, childish stunts.
You do not want to do the work of an opposition. You do not want to allow the government to do the work of government. So here we have it: a joke of an opposition, an absolute standing joke. I often think that if Peter Debnam came to the ACT and joined the Liberal Party here he would lift the standard and the quality. That is what you have sunk to.
What we need to understand in relation to this motion today, as it follows on from a no-confidence motion, is that the opposition today, through two stunts, have simply prevented the government from doing the business of government. We today have been prevented from debating and passing two important pieces of legislation because the opposition are too lazy, too disorganised, too fractured, too ignorant, to do their job. They will not investigate issues around health. The will not represent their constituency or the Canberra community in relation to education.
We have heard nothing on health and nothing on education from those opposite; nothing on any of the issues that concern the people of Canberra—just two stunts that have completely denied the government the opportunity to debate and pass the legislation that is on the notice paper. Be under no misunderstanding about this, be under no mistake about this: we saw them come in here today, this morning, piggybacking off a stunt, to pursue another stunt, a motion of no confidence, the second motion of no confidence in two weeks.
The opposition keep pretending that these are really serious motions: “We wouldn’t move these if they weren’t serious.” And then they do one a week, denying us the opportunity of debating our legislation. We get to the point where we had an opportunity to debate the financial management bill and we have now been denied that opportunity.
This is what this is about. This is why we will not pander to this nonsense. We will not pander to an opposition that has quite deliberately and brazenly today sought to deny the government the opportunity to govern on behalf of the people of the ACT—the people who, in their wisdom, put us here; the people who, in their wisdom, put us here in majority. And why did they put us here in majority? Because they know how hopeless you are, and you are illustrating it today. This is a fantastic illustration of why you are in opposition and why you will stay in opposition, because you are just not up to the job. You are hopeless, and in your destructive mode and determination to stop the government from doing the business of government you have today, on an executive business day, denied us the opportunity to debate our legislation.
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