Page 1698 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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The doozy of all statements is as follows:
But I find it a bit rich and completely and totally lacking in credibility for any business representative organisation in the ACT, having regard to the strength of this economy and all of the indicators, to whinge about tax rates or levels or its capacity to do business.
The people that have whinged most have been the property council, on behalf of the property sector and business—whinge, whinge, whinge. As soon as the results have been achieved, “Oh, look, now that you have achieved this great result—grab, grab, grab—can we have it? Well, no. You can’t.
I find appalling the comments made by the Chief Minister about respected members of our community—organisations that are just doing their job. It shows the Chief Minister’s complete arrogance, disdain and bias towards certain areas of our community, which is quite unnacceptable behaviour. These people have a right to put forward their point of view and they should not be abused. I refer, next, to the statements made by Mr Hargreaves. I will not quote some of the statements that have been referred to today, but additional statements come to mind, for example, “Now I can rip into anybody I like.” He also said:
I have been looking forward to it, I have to say, through you Mr Chairman to Dr Foskey, for about two weeks. I have been so looking forward to this I have had sleepless nights.
He also said to my colleague Mrs Burke:
We don’t seem to be speaking the same brand of English. Perhaps you and I could go and have a chat with them about accents.
I will not go into other issues that were dealt with today as they have already been dealt with adequately. But comments like that from government ministers were the unfortunate hallmark of estimates committee hearings this year—clear and unequivocal evidence of the arrogance, hypocrisy, and smug cynicism of this government. People in this city increasingly have come to expect that cynicism and smugness from this government. It is about time that it lifted its game.
The Stanhope government uses smug cynicism to cover up its ineptitude in economic and financial management, its obvious unwillingness, which we again saw today, to be open and accountable, and its abrogation of ministerial responsibility. By doing so it is losing touch with the people of Canberra and it regards them with disdain. This government is a government of waste and wrong priorities.
This year’s estimates committee process did much to highlight these failings. I think the estimates committee process has shown people the true colours of this government. What member of this place would treat fellow members in the way in which Mr Hargreaves treated Mrs Burke, Dr Foskey and Mr Pratt? What Chief Minister would accuse the business sector of whinging and grabbing?
What Chief Minister would forget that the business community gives us innovative products and services, gives us employment, and gives the ACT its prosperous
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