Page 3381 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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How many more trained inspectors do we need at 100 and something thousand dollars a head? Do I hear 10? Do I hear 15? Perhaps these guys over there might like to say something. I would like the opposition to tell me, if they are going to support this motion, where they are going to get the money from to support it.
If you guys over there do not oppose it, all of the things in this motion are going on your list of promises and we will tell the community you cannot pay for it. You cannot pay for it. You are now on notice that if you support this motion, everything on here that costs us a brass razoo is going on your bill. It is going on your bill.
Mr Pratt: Is that a threat, is it?
MR HARGREAVES: No threat; it is not a threat. It is a fact.
Mrs Dunne: It is a promise.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Gentleman): Order, Mrs Dunne!
MR HARGREAVES: There is a big difference between a threat, a promise and a fact. What we are seeing here, for the benefit of Mr Pratt—one of the B team members over there—is absolute fact.
Mrs Dunne: Mr Hargreaves’s behaviour is abuse like usual.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, cease interjecting! Mr Pratt, just before you commence your speech, I have called you to order several times, Mrs Dunne. Next time it will be a warning.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (5.23): Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. In the wake of that magnificent presentation by the minister who is all about hyperbole and drifting away from the facts, let us see if we can put a bit of reason back into this quite important debate.
Firstly, I would like to say this: I am deeply disappointed with the minister’s disdainful dismissal of Dr Foskey’s motion and this cynical method of totally wiping out her motion with his amendment, which amounts to a hill of beans in any case. It is just a very irresponsible way of avoiding a very important debate. He is down here dancing around, playing political games and avoiding the fundamental debate. I think Dr Foskey’s motion is a very interesting motion. I think it is a pretty good motion. The opposition wants to talk to that rather than shadow-box and carry on like a circus clown, as we see from members on the other side of this chamber.
I will pick up on a couple of points made by the minister. Firstly, his handling of the Revolve issue has been abysmal. The points made by Dr Foskey are very relevant in relation to this matter. The minister’s description today of the way that he handled that Revolve affair paints far too rosy a picture of the way that this government dealt with that particular matter.
Let us not ever forget that regardless of the weaknesses and/or the strengths in Revolve’s case—and, of course, there were many of each—Revolve did develop an
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