Page 3561 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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down off his website. He had the opportunity to say, “No, our policy is not to rip $60 million out.”
You have to ask the question: why he would not give that answer? Is it because he does not want to alienate those who are genuinely against non-government education in his party, his supporters? He is sort of walking both sides of the street. He says, “Look over here, look over there.” Then, after the election, no matter which position he takes, he can say, “Well, it is on our website. Didn’t you believe it?” They will say, “Well, you’re not keeping your promise,” and he will say, “No, but it was on our website the whole time. We had it there in black and white on our website. We were going to cut 60 million.”
It is legitimate that these questions be asked; it is legitimate that the party seeking to hold the balance of power is asked these questions and then answers these questions. When the Leader of the Greens had that opportunity to, he chose not to. There is absolute confusion as a result of the duplicitous messages that have been going back and forth on this issue. We know what they really want to do, but they realise there might be some electoral consequences from that, so they sort of run away from it but they do not really. Not enough to, say, take it out of their policy. Not enough to take it down off their website. Not enough for the Leader of the Greens, on national television, three days out from the election, to distance himself from it.
I would have thought that, if that genuinely was not their policy, if it was some sort of mistake or they saw the light some time ago and said, “No, no, we realised we were wrong on that; we don’t want to cut that funding to non-government schools,” Senator Bob Brown would have been very clear about that. I would have thought he would have said, “No, that’s not our policy. That policy on the website is wrong. It’s wrong and I refute it. I am causing it to be taken down to show that I am serious that that is not our policy. I am causing the amended policy to be put up on our website.” That is what you would do if you were fair dinkum. That is what you would do if you did not want to send two different messages to two very different constituencies.
This is about saying to the true believers: “Don’t worry, have a look on the website. That’s what we stand for. We do stand for getting rid of private health. We do stand for getting rid of funding to non-government schools.” But when they are trying to appeal to a broader constituency, some families who might send their kids to non-government schools—they might be the sort of voters that the Greens are trying to attract—they say, “No, no, no. Don’t believe what’s on our website, believe what’s in another statement somewhere else, in a letter somewhere.”
We had two speakers from the Greens who came down. They each had 15 minutes, and neither of them—
Mr Rattenbury: Actually I had 10, and you shouted at me the whole time.
MR SESELJA: I apologise; Mr Rattenbury has interjected. Between them, they had 25 minutes to disavow the policy. They had 25 minutes, not 30 minutes—my sincere apologies to Mr Rattenbury—and they could not bring themselves to walk away from it. That is why it is important.
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