Page 842 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you want to reflect on and criticise the Speaker, Mr Hanson, you need to raise that in a separate motion. You will not do that within this motion, so the point of order is upheld. Do you want to continue now without—
MR HANSON: Madam Deputy Speaker, I get confused about who is the Speaker in this place, because clearly the man who should be here presiding over this very important motion is not.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just go back to the motion please, Mr Hanson.
MR HANSON: It gets confusing for me. Clearly, I cannot criticise him for his failings as a Speaker. Based on your ruling, I cannot say that he should be in this chair and that he has failed in his role as the Speaker. So I will not do that.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, if you wish to do that, you can do it at another time.
MR HANSON: What I will do is say that he has failed in his role as a Greens crossbencher. He has failed to hold a minister to account when it is in black and white in the Hansard repeatedly that this minister has misled the Assembly. For Mr Rattenbury, in his leadership of the Greens here today, with the absence of Meredith Hunter, to abjectly refuse to hold a minister to account is a failing of the crossbench.
What we see here today is a unity between the government and the Greens over important matters of accountability. I would expect that all of us in this place have differences when it comes to opinion on policy, but the only party in this place that is putting the probity of the Assembly before itself and before anything else is the Liberal Party. The Labor Party, through Mr Corbell’s actions, and the Greens, through their support of Mr Corbell today, have put themselves before the Assembly and, most importantly, Madam Deputy Speaker, before the community.
I am disappointed in Mr Corbell’s actions and I am disappointed in his response today, but I am not surprised. I do not think any of us are surprised. He has form. We know that he has somewhat of a track record and is willing to say pretty much anything he can get away with in this Assembly. What does disappoint me and will disappoint the community—and I think it would disappoint many of the grassroots membership of the Greens, if they believe in the accountability and scrutiny of government—is the fact that today Shane Rattenbury and his Greens colleagues have decided to put themselves ahead of accountability in this place. That is what we have seen. It is disgraceful. In summation, it is clear that we have been misled. It is clear that Mr Corbell continues to mislead us and it is clear that he has the ongoing support of his Greens mate, particularly Mr Rattenbury, and I question why. (Time expired.)
MR COE (Ginninderra) (11.35): What we have seen today from Mr Corbell, the government and also the crossbench is very much indicative of how this government is tiring and how this Assembly is not doing its job. What we have here is a government with extreme arrogance that will not put the people of Canberra first—people who have lost their homes and people who have perhaps lost family members
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video