Page 3955 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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Treasurer have thought that? Why would she have thought it was a good idea to keep it secret before an election? The only reason we actually had this debate was that the matter was leaked to the Canberra Times.
This Treasurer tried to hide this plan and now we know why she tried to hide it. When it was put up to the light of day, it did not withstand scrutiny. It did not withstand scrutiny. Everyone who was not on the government payroll, who was asked about this, disagreed with you. Every eminent economist who was asked to comment on it disagreed with you and you could not find one to back it up. Perhaps that is the reason why you did not want to have the scrutiny. Perhaps that is the reason. It did not stand up to scrutiny.
We offered to have the Auditor-General look at it and again the Greens and Labor got together to shut that down. Now Mr Hanson is simply asking for some more information. He is asking for some more information. I put it to the Assembly that the biggest problem amongst many in this process has been the fact that this minister has hidden information.
This motion calls on the minister to table the accounting advice and to rule out further attempts to purchase Calvary hospital. Why would you not table that advice? What is so secret about this advice that would stop you from tabling it and being open? You have not been open up until now. Why do you not start tonight, support this motion, table the advice and show that, despite the fact that you could not stand up to scrutiny before, you actually believe that you can stand up to scrutiny?
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (7.57): I want to put a couple of things on the record in relation to this. One is addressing specifically the wording of the motion and the other one is what I believe to be the significant issue that has been missed by those intellectual dwarves across the chamber. I have not seen such a display of paranoia and hysterics over conspiracy theories since Mrs Dunne’s last outburst.
Mrs Dunne: Since Jon Stanhope lost his bottle last time.
Mr Hanson: Jon was pretty appalling, mate, but I’ve seen worse.
Mrs Dunne: It was pretty embarrassing, wasn’t it?
MR HARGREAVES: I do note the comment from Mr Seselja; the more they interject, the more they are obviously upset. So I take him at his word—so far we have got three out of three, and I congratulate them for having that position.
Looking at the actual words of the motion, it is interesting to see how Mr Hanson’s straw man is built on such flimsy stuff and hysterical wording. Basically, he has to create a state of fear so that the people out there in punter land really need him, because he is the only person who can kill the monster. He creates this state of fear by using such words as “flawed rationale”. There is nothing to back it up here—nothing. But he says “the minister’s flawed rationale”. I have not seen any flawed rationale. And he puts words in people’s mouths. He says that the minister said the spending of the $77 million was necessary to fix an accounting problem. I do not recall the minister saying that that was the reason for this particular transaction.
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