Page 941 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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change. We are the only party in this place that has shown a commitment to dealing with the issues of sustainable transport. As I said earlier in response to a question, just under 30 per cent of our emissions are as a result of or in response to petrol. We need to do something about public transport. That is why we have undertaken some of the work that we have in relation to enhancing the capacity of public transport to operate efficiently and effectively and in a sustainable way within this territory.
That is why we have not adopted the flat earth approach that you have, the back to the past approach—let us just devote ourselves to the car and ignore public transport and the needs of people who utilise public transport; let us put them aside as expendable, a disposable part of our community, not part of our constituency, not somebody we are concerned about or care about and devote ourselves exclusively and divisively to the motor car. This is the Liberal Party mantra: motor car, motor car. Let us ignore public transport. Let us ignore the need for a sustainable transport plan. Let us slavishly and sycophantically follow the Prime Minister in relation to his ignoring the reality of climate change.
It is to your shame as a party that none of you have had the gumption to stand up to your Prime Minister and say, “Prime Minister, you are wrong on Kyoto. Prime Minister, you are wrong to insist that climate change is not a reality.” None of you have the guts to stand up against your own party and your own leader, who has led you down this path of climate change denial. History will look back on this last decade and it will recognise two things about the Liberal Party in Australia. The first is that it ignored the most important issue facing the world, namely, climate change and, secondly, that it exacerbated the second most important issue facing the world, namely, terrorism. You ignored one and you are responsible for the other.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR STANHOPE: There is not a serious commentator in Australia that denies that your actions as a party and as a government federally have made Australia less safe than it was. There were a few right wing commentators that bleated away four or five years ago, but they have all scuttled off into the shadows now. Not one of them is out there now saying, “This was a great thing we did. The invasion of Iraq actually made us all safer.” There is not a serious commentator in Australia, or indeed many Australians left other than the Liberal Party, who thinks that you, with your slavish following of the Americans into Iraq, have made Australia a safer place. You have not, and you know it.
Rhodium Asset Solutions Ltd
MR SMYTH: My question is to the Chief Minister and Treasurer. The Territory-Owned Corporations Act requires a territory-owned corporation to provide to the voting shareholders each year a draft statement of corporate intent. This statement must then be finalised within two months of being presented to the voting shareholders. Why didn’t you and your fellow voting shareholder agree to the draft statement of corporate intent that was provided to you in April 2005 by the board of Rhodium Asset Solutions?
MR STANHOPE: We decided to take some further advice on it at the time.
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