Page 3988 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
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So it would be inappropriate for me to take anything to cabinet unless I had as complete a set of documentation around those issues as I can obtain. At this stage, they are almost complete.
So here we are with the minister anticipating the RTA report, yet he is still in denial when he comes back into this place in November. He misled the house. He was clearly asked about the cost of restoring the bridge. He talked about the Baileys and the ownership of the Baileys, and that is mentioned here as well. The bridge could be up and operational within about 60 weeks. The minister has misled the house. He has been given the opportunity on a number of occasions to table the report and he has refused to do so. That is the nub of this problem.
It is all well and good for the Chief Minister to say that he has lots of confidence in the minister. But the reality is that yesterday, late in the day, very late in the day, the Chief Minister took over. There was a palace coup. The palace has taken back Tharwa bridge from Mr Hargreaves. That is the final confirmation, in many ways, that the minister misleads this place. In his press release dated 4 December 2007, the Chief Minister referred to various options and said:
• proceeding with the decision to build a new bridge. This option would almost certainly result in the demolition of the old bridge, since there is a serious risk that the old bridge will collapse if not rebuilt.
The minister was asked if the old bridge was going to be demolished, and he refused to answer the question. He had knowledge available to him through his officers. His representative attended the meeting in the Chief Minister’s where I understand this report was discussed. They knew that the bridge could be saved for half the $10 million mentioned. The minister does not have the courage to say, “I misinformed cabinet. I misled my colleagues. I misled the Assembly. I am not capable of being a minister and getting it right.” That is the nub of what we do here today. The motion lists the enormous failures of this minister.
The minister has failed or breached the ministerial code of conduct and nothing has happened about it. He has failed or breached the code of consultation and nothing has happened about it. Indeed, the Chief Minister was asked today if he had ever discussed the minister’s behaviour with him and he said, “No.” I remember an article after last year’s estimates debacle which reported that the minister was spoken to by the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister expressed his regret at the behaviour of the minister, but still it goes on. This is a minister who stumbles from disaster to disaster.
We had another one just the other day. The Canberra Times of Saturday, 1 December reported that the minister responsible for ACTION, the minister responsible for getting people on buses, thinks that to get a bus home is a punishment. There was a heckler at a function that Mr Hargreaves attended. Mr Hargreaves said, “Any more of that and I’ll make you catch an ACTION bus home.” There you go. That is pride in the bus service that he has created.
Mr Hargreaves said, “I will back my record against Mr Pratt’s record any time.” Mr Pratt is in opposition. He is here to question the minister. That is our job. But if you cast your mind back, Mr Speaker, just to the last quarter, Mr Pratt has put, and
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