Page 3614 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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right faction in the ACT of the Labor Party? Is that what this is all about? I mean, is that why he is keeping these roles?” The response was, “Oh, well, look, that’s—I do not want to get into factional issues and who controls which faction, but the leader of the right, if I am to discuss factions at all, is Andrew Barr.”
That is the Chief Minister’s answer to the question of why you have a minister who does not consult and why you are prepared to tolerate it. His answer is, “Well, firstly, I need to correct you, Alex. John Hargreaves is not the leader of the right. It is Andrew Barr. And, yes, I am beholden to him and, yes, that is why I have a minister who pays such scant regard to the community, who pays such scant regard to community consultation, who has such a poor record in his ministerial portfolios. But, of course, Jon Stanhope cannot get rid of him. He cannot get rid of him because the right will not let him.
We know that the right had a meeting here in the Assembly last night and, really, that is the new caucus. Once the right makes its decision, that is what the cabinet is bound by, that is what the Chief Minister is bound by. It was sad to watch the Chief Minister today in his churlish attack on my colleague Mr Coe. The outbursts we see from the Chief Minister are getting quite embarrassing. You have to suspect that these embarrassing outbursts are as a result of a man who has totally lost control over his caucus, of a man who has totally lost control over his cabinet and who has acknowledged publicly that the factions are in play.
He had to correct Alex Sloan and tell her that actually the right is controlled by Andrew Barr. So it is no longer the Chief Minister in control of his cabinet. It is no longer the Chief Minister in control of the caucus. He is a slave to the right of the Labor Party at the moment. We saw that again I think with the timing of the announcement on fireworks, an issue that we know the government is divided on.
We saw that overwhelming endorsement from the Chief Minister of Mr Hargreaves and that day we are told he goes out and signs the regulation to ban fireworks. What can we draw from this timing? What we have here is a Chief Minister who can no longer defend the fact that he has no ability to remove ministers when they are not performing. He will do as he is told and he has been told that this is the ministry that he gets. This is perhaps why we see some of the outbursts from the Chief Minister. We see a Chief Minister who is so frustrated by this scenario. It is sad to watch. It is sad to watch this decline. The question then becomes—
Mr Hanson: It is not that sad, though, is it?
MR SESELJA: We all have different views on how sad it is, but it is sad for the community. We have seen this in recent days. Why are they not consulting with the community properly? It is because they are too busy consulting the only community that matters to them at the moment, and that is the factions. That is the only community of people who really matter to the Labor Party right now. It is the factions. It is the factions who are controlling what goes on in this government and in this cabinet, and it is the factions who they need to consult with.
That is why they do not need to bother to consult with the community. That is why they tolerate a minister who has such a poor record on consultation, who has such a
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