Page 230 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video

I return to Mrs Dunne’s reference to the Gumnut centre and say again that I am confident that the minister’s department is working closely with Gumnut to explore alternatives and to find a suitable location for them. I am confident that this is going ahead. I support Ms Burch’s amendment and not Mrs Dunne’s motion.

Question put:

That Ms Burch’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 9

Noes 4

Mr Barr

Ms Hunter

Mr Coe

Ms Bresnan

Ms Le Couteur

Mrs Dunne

Ms Burch

Ms Porter

Mr Seselja

Mr Corbell

Mr Rattenbury

Mr Smyth

Ms Gallagher

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.52): It is an extremely disappointing day for the people of the Gumnut Place childcare centre that we have had this watering down of a motion, because what today was about was trying to provide certainty for these families. It does actually seem to show that Evatt’s gumnuts really are under threat from the big bad banksia men and mean old Mrs Snake. What we have seen here today is that, collectively, the Greens and the Labor Party have taken what should be a simple process and made it difficult. They show that they are not working for the people of the ACT.

The Labor Party is really spending its time puffing itself up and talking about generalities, but when it comes to the crunch it is not prepared to work for the people of the ACT, for the people of Evatt, for the children who attend Gumnut Place childcare centre, for the parents who send their children there and for the 12 workers who work there. They have been aided and abetted in this by the Greens, who have sold out. They spend their time, again, talking in platitudinous ways about how important childcare is, how important it is that we have a community-based childcare service in the ACT, but when we are confronted with an individual community-based childcare centre, “No, we don’t not want to help them.”

This is typical of the Greens; we see it in everything. For years and years they talked about how they were in favour of urban infill, until there was urban infill in a particular place or a particular street—“Not that one; that’s not right.” It has been brought out here today; they are always in favour of things in general, but when it comes to the individual, practical circumstance, they always find an excuse why they back away. Here today, while they spoke in platitudinous terms about the importance of community-based, not-for-profit childcare centres and what great work these community organisations do and how we need to support them, when it comes to the crunch, Meredith Hunter and the Greens cannot support the Gumnut Place childcare centre, which is in her own electorate.

Ms Burch takes everything on notice. Ms Burch does not do anything of her own volition. We had an opportunity here today to ensure that Ms Burch did something for

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video