Page 88 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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they do not own it—they are merely the custodians of it. That places governments in a huge position of responsibility. We must remember that citizens cannot directly check whether money is being spent properly, either within legislative guidelines or within statutory responsibilities. We have in place a range of institutions that oversee the processes of government, including the Auditor-General, the Human Rights Commission, freedom of information commissioners and the Ombudsman. But what we do not have is a body to scrutinise government decisions. That is left to the public every four years. And every four years the government must put forward its record, its credentials, in the hope that the electorate will believe it is a sound and competent government. The evidence is in: this government, through its decision-making processes, has shown itself to be a failure.
The Stanhope government’s record will become a major focus this year. It was interesting to hear Mr Hargreaves talking about the election. We have seen today from this government an attempt to run away from their record. If there was a criticism of the Howard government in the last year before they got voted out, it was that they focused too much on their record. Well, not this government; not the Stanhope government. They want to run away from their record. They want to talk about anything but their record. They do not want to talk about school closures and having misled the community. They do not want to talk about wasting taxpayers’ money on FireLink, the busway, the prison—the list goes on. They do not want to talk about these issues. We saw that today in question time and we see it again from Mr Hargreaves now.
The residents of the ACT expect their government to be open and honest with them, to tell them the truth and not to hoodwink them, and to make sure that in their decision-making process their money is being used wisely and in a proper manner. As I said, it is not their money; they are merely the custodians of it. Unfortunately, the Stanhope government appears to believe that our money is their money, to do with and use as they personally see fit.
I want to go through some examples of the decision-making processes of this government. One relates to school closures. Much has been said on this, and we will be checking the record regarding Mr Stanhope’s question time performance today very closely. Mr Stanhope, of course, made the claim that they were open and honest about their plans prior to the last election, that it was an unknown spokesperson who just got it wrong and that the government was really telling the people the truth. The document that he tabled to prove this was the Hansard from 26 August. I am not quite sure why we need to table Hansard. I would have thought we could just look at the Hansard; nonetheless he has tabled it. Remember that it came after 12 August, nine weeks before the election, when the government, through its spokesperson, absolutely ruled out school closures in the next term. It did not say, “We don’t have any plans.” It said, “We will not be closing schools in the next term,” and, in fact, not in Ms Gallagher’s time in politics. Ms Dundas pursued this matter and asked this specific question: “Is it the minister’s intention to close schools if re-elected?” Ms Gallagher said:
The government has no plans to close any schools … There are some schools out there. I think of Narrabundah school as an example of a small school. It would never be a viable candidate for closure.
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