Page 2718 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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attack. We have seen that with the budget in its entirety. When we have the audacity to criticise this budget, we do not actually hear a defence of the budget. What we hear is “Where’s your plan? You can’t criticise us because you don’t have a plan.”
Let us just remind ourselves of what the process is here. We are the opposition and you are the government. You deliver the budget and then we, through a process of estimates and in the Assembly, respond to that and criticise it. I will just quote here from Mr Stanhope when he was the Leader of the Opposition: “In contemporary politics, particularly for an opposition, the focus is on the negatives. It almost has to be and almost always is. Governments must be scrutinised. They must be accountable. That is the role of oppositions and it is a role that is particularly necessary as governments become lazy, arrogant, aloof and accident prone.” That is what we hear about today and that is what we will be continuing on with on Thursday—holding you to account.
This defence that you have, which is a form of attack, is “Well, you can’t criticise us because you haven’t got a plan.” If you would like us to present a plan to you, give us the keys to the Treasury, let us get in control of those benches over there, and we will show you our plan. But, until then, you need to articulate better to the community, to the opposition and to the crossbench the rationale for this budget. So it is a false premise, an absolutely false premise.
Mr Seselja graciously offered the opportunity to government members to defend the Chief Minister for his attack on the Auditor-General, and we certainly heard all that Mr Corbell had to say. As I was saying before lunch, Mr Hargreaves certainly took the opportunity, didn’t he? He stood up, and we all waited for his eloquent defence of the Chief Minister’s actions. And what did he say? “No”. If ever we needed confirmation that the members of the Labor Party are not quite unified behind the Chief Minister that was probably the final bit of evidence that we needed—the same minister who on Triple 6, when asked about the questions on notice and his support of the Chief Minister there, was quite categorical.
It is good to see him come into the chamber because I can get, once again, to praising Mr Hargreaves for his actions. Although I often am critical of Mr Hargreaves—there is no doubt about that, and I think rightly so—what I have never seen from Mr Hargreaves is him trying to blame others for his own mistakes. He certainly has been quite courageous in the rather unpleasant hospital pass he was given on the Alexander Maconochie Centre. He has actually taken that on the chin and has not blamed Mr Corbell for somewhat of a fiasco that he then had to inherit.
We have a government that attacks. It attacked on the land, using the LDA to attack the report in the Canberra Times. It has attacked us, it has attacked the Greens and now it is attacking the Auditor-General. But let us put it on the record here, and certainly I speak for the opposition—I hope I speak for the crossbench—that we see the Auditor-General as a beacon of independence, and we support her. We commend her. We admire her and we will not allow her to be disheartened. We support her and we say to her: “Don’t give up. Keep holding the government to account. Keep performing your audits, and don’t be intimidated by the Chief Minister.”
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Burch): I call Mr Hargreaves.
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