Page 3493 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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MS HUNTER: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Finally, I would like to turn to the economic impact on families. I know we have already discussed it in the chamber this week. I am genuinely astounded that the Liberal Party can make such a claim in their motion today when they are out there promoting a policy that will rip jobs out of Canberra, that will have a massive impact on Canberra families, that will mean that families cannot afford to pay their mortgages, cannot afford to feed and clothe their children. They will struggle greatly.
This is going to be the big anti-family policy of this campaign. This is going to be the one that has the biggest impact on families here in the territory. I refer to the slashing. We can argue about how many jobs in the ACT. We do not know. We do now know exactly what Mr Tony Abbott has in mind. But what we know is that it will have a massive impact.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Gaming and Racing) (12.20): It is with a degree trepidation that I rise to speak in this debate to stand between the spears that are being thrown in this most heated of—
Mrs Dunne: Well, sit down, Andrew.
MR BARR: Come on, Vicki. You really are in a very bad mood this morning, aren’t you? Madam Assistant Speaker, I think it is fair to say that this motion is very unfair to the Greens party. It does follow a pattern of unfair attacks on the Greens party during this campaign, both locally and nationally. The Greens party has been unfairly attacked from the outset.
In the local context, Senator Humphries has become more and more desperate. As he has become more and more desperate, he has been prepared to pretty much say or do anything. So today, he can get some of his old colleagues here to run a motion that contains obviously inaccurate attacks on the Greens’ policies. I will come back to that point in a moment.
I think it is also worth noting that the Greens party has also been unfairly attacked from the inside. In emails leaked to the Age, the Greens party candidate for the Victorian seat of McEwen complained:
I am bloody angry! It seems that the Greens are becoming more like the other bastards—I wonder why I bother!
And the Greens party candidate for Bendigo replied:
We need people like us so that the Greens don’t turn into ‘just another party’, which I am sad to say is what is happening.
That is very unfair and it is very unfortunate. But I can assure you that I do not believe that the Greens party is turning into just another party. You will always be a little bit different, Madam Assistant Speaker, and I believe that absolutely.
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