Page 5300 - Week 14 - Thursday, 19 November 2009
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That is an incredibly difficult threshold to meet in the context of people operating in public places, usually at night, and who do not tend to hang around after they have let the fireworks off. So, in those circumstances, the ability to enforce and take action against those who do the wrong thing is incredibly difficult. But that is not to say the government and its agencies did not attempt to do so. We placed additional patrols of police focused on this issue and there were additional call-taking staff through police operations to receive the many hundreds of calls or complaints that were regularly received from members of the public. We made sure that our fire brigade services were able to respond promptly with particular emphasis on these issues, and we put additional regulatory inspectors, civilian inspectors, on call and on duty at appropriate times to assist with the regulatory arrangements.
So to suggest that there has not been sufficient enforcement is simply the fig leaf that it has to be for the Liberal Party in this debate, because without that fig leaf they have nothing in terms of why their position has changed, except, of course, the quick, political populism that they think they may be able to get by opposing this unfortunate but necessary move. Of course, this populism comes on the back of some very strong language from members of the Liberal Party.
Indeed, the former leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Stefaniak, said back in November 2007 that since 2003 it has been the position of the ACT Liberal Party to ban the purchase of fireworks by members of the public. He said that with such a potentially dangerous product, it is important that regulations are in place to stop as far as is practicable irresponsible and reckless use. That is the position of the Liberal Party from one of their former leaders. He went on to say that there does come a time when we need to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough.
Of course, then there was Mr Pratt, who indicated that it was absolutely essential to ban fireworks. Indeed, he presented a bill to this effect. He said in August 2003:
A barrage of complaints from the community has fallen upon successive governments regarding the disruption to the community and the acts of vandalism caused by fireworks.
Mr Smyth said:
The sensible and reasonable thing for all members to do today would be to support this bill.
That is reference to the bill to ban fireworks. I think Mrs Dunne’s quote is the best one, though. She said in that same debate in reference to this government:
Their track record on this is one of flip-flopping around and backflipping … The quality of the debate in here in defence of the indefensible is very low. It is time that the members of this place took a good hard look at themselves and, in accord with the overwhelming views of the community, supported Mr Pratt’s legislation.
Out of their own mouths. So what has changed? What has changed in relation to the Liberal Party’s position? They have no defence for this extraordinary backflip. They
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