Page 4001 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 2010
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I came into this place and did the right thing on Tuesday, 24 August when I gave her an opportunity, a very simple opportunity. I think that any other minister would have corrected the record. Instead, she went on the attack again. She desperately tried to demonstrate confidence. Because her confidence got such a battering at the start of her ministerial career, she is now going overboard trying to demonstrate confidence. But I am afraid the confidence is totally unfounded, Ms Burch.
She even said that anybody who drives by the units will know that they are not completed. If that is the case, why did you not correct the record? Why did you mislead the Assembly last week? Why have you not corrected the record in the three sitting days you have had to do so? It is extremely disappointing but extremely indicative of the disrespect you show this place, the disrespect you show your department, the disrespect you show your staff and the disrespect you show other ministers and the Australian Labor Party.
The arrogance she attempts to display, the confidence she attempts to display, are unjustified and unwarranted. We all know the Joy Burch story. We all know her story about being a minister in this place. She was an uninspiring backbencher who was promoted to the frontbench through a process of elimination and it went straight to her head. It went straight to her head that she was suddenly a minister in the Australian Capital Territory. Who would have thought two years ago, in 2008, that this person would be a minister of the ACT? Who would have thought it? Yet she is a minister here.
If you are going to be a minister in this place, you would think that you would take it very seriously. You would take on the responsibility and you would treat it with the respect it so desperately deserves. Instead, the overconfidence was apparent on day one. She thought that because she was a minister she was the bee’s knees. I am afraid she is not and her record indeed demonstrates that. It is extremely disappointing and it is extremely disappointing for all the stakeholders in the territory. She thought she was being fast-tracked to be Chief Minister when she became a minister. Who knows? Maybe she could be in the Lodge in a few years time.
It became apparent to everyone in this place that she did not have the answers to the questions which we posed to her early on in her ministry. Rather than get on top of her briefs, rather than read up and get on top of things, she kept on going as she was. I think it is quite interesting because her staff, or Mr Stanhope, must have told her that the strategy was to take the questions on notice—“Take everything on notice.” “Why?” “Because that is going to be lower risk than your answering them. Even though you are going to cop a bit of flak for not answering any of the questions in this place, it will still be lower risk than you actually trying to answer them.” It was lower risk for her to cop flak for not answering than it was for her to be let loose.
In addition to that, we have heard of many other blunders. She told the WIN journalist that she had not read the report she had just launched. She then arrogantly said, “Well, cut that,” expecting that the WIN journalist would just bow to her demands. She still, of course, has animosity towards WIN TV, even though they were simply doing their job. She is a poor man’s Andrew Barr, who is the poor man’s Jon Stanhope, who is no idol that anyone should be looking up to.
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