Page 1607 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
It would be remiss of me not to touch briefly on the EpiCentre saga. Despite all the rhetoric, there are still outstanding questions. The most important is: does the development at section 48 comply with the national capital plan? The Auditor-General’s report is silent on this subject and the ACT planning body is yet to justify its approval. While this is an issue for future sittings of this place, I would say, within the context of the budget, that I hope that the ACT government has made sufficient allowance for the potential legal ramifications if this development is deemed to be not in accordance with the national capital plan. The unexpected extra $65 million in GST grants may well become the majority of a payment to a developer that has potentially been led down the garden path by the ACT government, and even that amount may not be enough.
I want to mention education. No-one in the ACT will ever forget last year’s budget and the pillaging of the ACT education system by the ACT government. Perhaps the reason it is so hard to believe Minister Barr’s hard sell on education is due to the lack of trust that the community now has in Stanhope Labor. There is no area in the community where that breach of trust is more apparent than in the school closures breach of promise. This government went to the last election promising not to close schools. The former education minister promised not to close schools. Then, only 18 months later, came the announcement that 40 schools would close. Now 23 schools are to close.
What a breach of trust that was, what a fundamental misleading of the ACT community by this government. They claimed that they would not close one school and now they are closing 23 schools. They have absolutely breached our trust. If they cannot be trusted in their most fundamental promises around education, how can we trust anything that they say from now on?
There was probably a glimmer of hope prior to the announcement about schools closing by families that had kids at Flynn primary, Rivett primary and Tharwa. Cook primary, Village Creek primary and Kambah high school were also waiting for a second chance, but all to no avail. All of these schools have been closed or will be closed. Despite our being told that things are good and there is a surplus, apparently—although we do not believe it—of over $100 million, there was no reprieve for these schools.
It should be noted that the Canberra community has figured out who Andrew Barr really is. He is “Cleanskin Barr”, the man you send in when the problem minister has been removed. How can Ms Gallagher, the presumptive Chief Minister, the Deputy Chief Minister, sell education renewal when she is the one that created the problem? The answer is she cannot, so they send in “Cleanskin Barr”. How can Mr Corbell, the champion of the hard left and ardent supporter of government monopoly development flip-flop on land release and development policy? The answer is he cannot, so they send in “Cleanskin Barr”. What is next for “Cleanskin”? The way health is travelling in the ACT, Mr Barr had best start his background reading right now.
The ACT prison probably best represents the mismanagement and misdirected priorities of the Stanhope Labor government. This is a project that had blown its
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .