Page 244 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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motion that is very positive and was only ever intended to be positive has been turned into a political exercise. It is extremely disappointing that that has happened.
Mr Corbell: I think your exercise is the political one.
MS BRESNAN: No. Mr Corbell has completely misrepresented what was in our motion. Again, I would point out that I had a conversation with the Chief Minister’s office. That information was obviously not passed on to either Mr Corbell or Mr Stanhope and they would not return my calls. We will not be supporting this amendment. Obviously I appreciate the support from Mr Smyth and Mr Doszpot and appreciate they are supporting the substance of the motion.
I have spoken to Mr Ahmed Youssef and also to Mr Asmi Wood. Again, I would point out that we have spoken to them through the entirety of putting this motion together. It would have been nice if the Chief Minister had done the same. They would then have understood what we were trying to achieve with this motion. Mr Corbell said that we want him to give out money and that it is something government does not do. I not particularly want to raise this in the speech, but I think I am forced to. We have allocated money to the Brumbies, the Capitals and bringing Lauren Jackson here and the ACT baseball team. That is all fine, but if we want to give some money to establish or just assist in providing support—not even financially—to establish an Islamic library, issue is taken with that.
Amendment agreed to.
MR SPEAKER: The question now is that Ms Bresnan’s motion, as amended, be agreed to.
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (8.12): I am not going to say too much. I think I have probably said all I need to in addressing the amendment. I thank Mr Smyth for his information on the Islamic library. They need to construct a building to house the texts on the site. I also noted that in my speech. Mr Corbell obviously was not listening to my speech because that was noted in there. I said it a number of times.
This was done in complete consultation with Mr Ahmed Youssef, who is here today—as we would. Again, if the Chief Minister’s office had chosen to return our calls and speak to us they would have known what we are trying to achieve with this motion. We wanted it to be a very positive motion for the Islamic community in Canberra and the tone of Mr Corbell’s speech was completely unnecessary and quite offensive. That is really disappointing.
Every time we meet in this place and make decisions on policy and program objectives we know that there are resource and budgetary outcomes. My motion was not about all resources coming from government—quite to the contrary. It was about government and members in this place standing behind a policy commitment for an Islamic library and assisting the search for appropriate private and public resourcing. It was never about bypassing any processes or giving anyone a handout. Mr Corbell is interjecting again. Again I would point that if he had actually spoken—
Mr Corbell: Where in your motion does it say “private funding”?
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