Page 3009 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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a position where the government cannot continue to ride roughshod over the Assembly and over the community, then we would have a situation that is far worse than it is today. So let us bear in mind that what good the government does and where it is open and where it is accountable, in the main, in my view, is because of the pressure that has been put on them now through the scrutiny that has been applied through this place by the opposition and—I will give credit where it is due—in most cases, by the crossbench.
Let us have a look at some of the areas where the government was up to its old tricks and has been up to its old tricks. Let us, whilst we have got Mr Hargreaves here—and I do understand that he was not the minister at the time—think about the Alexander Maconochie Centre. I think we all remember the opening that none of us were invited to. I am sure a lot of Labor candidates were. Mr Corbell certainly likes to invite Labor candidates to openings of government things like the Gungahlin police station. There is no doubt Labor candidates were invited. I know I was not. I am not sure whether you were, Madam Assistant Speaker Burch.
That opening occurred in September, on the eve of the caretaker period, at a time when the government was pretty much aware that there were ongoing problems and the risk, the chances, of them receiving prisoners in the short term were pretty slight. Indeed, that is what occurred. The government went out, with much hoopla, much glitz, much breast beating—and that is another quote, that they were not going to do that, but in this case they certainly did—and opened this wonderful new prison. But unfortunately it was not ready to receive prisoners. Do you think that is honest? It is a funny definition of honesty.
We then had the school closures, and Mrs Dunne certainly made mention of that. But remember, in the 2004 election, “no school closures; we will not close any schools”. Is that honest? Was that honest? Certainly I have been in a committee where I have had the opportunity to read a number of submissions from people who are affected by those school closures. I think that to say that the consultation process was open would be a long stretch of one’s imagination, to be polite.
Whilst on the matter of education, let me turn to class sizes. And this is another policy that Labor could not quite steal from us. They went part way in terms of reducing class sizes but what they did was shroud their weaker policy in their myth of class sizes. But it was about averages. And we have seen what averages mean with this government in they way they have used their statistics. I think it is 57 schools where class sizes have that average. The number is high—57 schools across the territory. But what you will hear is them use average class sizes to cloak the fact that they still have literally hundreds of classes in the ACT with class size averages way beyond 21.
Let me turn then to Calvary. I think there is a general acceptance that in some cases you do have to be prudent with information when you are conducting deals, when you are in negotiations. But if that is the case, then you do not go to the community, you do not go, as part of your election platform, and say publicly on the eve of an election, “All of our plans are on the table,” and ridicule the opposition. You do not say that you are open and say that you are honest if you know that you are, at that very time, conducting behind-closed-door deals. That is part of that quote that I read before about rejecting behind-closed-door deals.
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