Page 2457 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 August 2007
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statement on page 285 of budget paper No 4 about “the creation and implementation of a range of marketing and development programs”.
I think there is a great opportunity to secure a significant event for the first half of the year. There are some very special events such as the folk festival and the multicultural festival. The folk festival is saying that they are now pretty much at capacity at EPIC, and that is a good thing. They have built it up over the couple of decades that it has been going. Of all the events, I believe the balloon fiesta has a significant future, and I ask the minister to support it. (Time expired.)
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (4.48): I have observed in recent times Dr Foskey giving us lectures on courtesy. I also recall in this debate her giving the government a serve over the abandonment of people in Tharwa, which Mr Gentleman has successfully put to rest this afternoon. But she was not in the chamber to hear Mr Gentleman’s update on where the government is at in that regard. But I will deal with the Tharwa issue a little later.
I will make a couple of very quick points to correct the record regarding what Mr Pratt said. He got into the government for not providing enough money with respect to the storm damage to drains. I think the Chisholm drains were the example that he gave. If Mr Pratt had half the wit that we would expect of him, he would have known that there might have been an insurance policy covering these things. Therefore, if there is insurance coverage of this major piece of infrastructure, there needs to be an insurance assessment and an assessment of priorities, and all of that was done. So it is covered by insurance, and Mr Pratt has not tweaked to it. If he has tweaked to it, he has not done the courteous thing and acknowledged it.
Mr Pratt also displayed his absolute ignorance of budget composition by saying: “I can’t find footpath maintenance in it; I can’t find it in here. Maybe there’s something on page so-and-so of the book here but I can’t find it there.” Why is that? Because it is in the base budget and it always has been. If Mr Pratt had a genuine need to find out how much it was, all he had to do was ask and I would have been happy to provide the information.
He then said we were really terrible because we did not mow the long grass in Melbourne Avenue. Shadows of former ministers for urban services! This is what happened regarding Melbourne Avenue: the grass was indeed long, and the reason was that only half of it was mowed, and that was because the crew were asked to go elsewhere. There is a normal mowing program; it was on the program; they were halfway there and then there was an urgent requirement for fire mitigation. The crew went off to do it and then they came back. And I point out that they actually mowed the grass, as part of the normal program, one or two days before Mr Pratt put out his press release saying that we had not mowed the lawn. I have to thank him very much for the entertainment and the sound of massive guffaws coming out of Macarthur House as a consequence of that.
He also had a go at us over the bus rocks issue. “You have not done anything,” he cried from the rooftops. We said to him, “What would you do?’ He said, “It’s not up to me; it’s up to you.” He is supposed to be part of an alternative government, isn’t he? How about coming up with some ideas? All he does is whinge.
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