Page 1349 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2011
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preselection for that seat. Then in June 2008, later that month, Iemma suspended John Della Bosca and demanded that he issue an apology. Then in August 2008, police actually ruled out any charges against anyone with regard to the Iguana-gate affair and John Della Bosca was back, bigger and better than ever. However, it was just a year or so later that John Della Bosca had to resign from the ministry after it was revealed he had an affair. Here we go: this is the calibre of the people that we have in the New South Wales Labor Party just over the border, I might add, and colleagues of those opposite in this place.
In September 2008 the newly appointed police minister Matt Brown had to quit after he lied to the then premier Nathan Rees about dancing in his underpants at a post-budget party in June. Wouldn’t that be a sight? The only thing I can imagine worse than that would be seeing one of these ministers doing the same sort of thing post-budget in May. So stay tuned, everyone in Canberra. Stay tuned and lock up everything and everyone you can, because no-one would want to see anything of the sort here in the territory, or in any state for that matter.
In November 2008 we had Tony Stewart being sacked as the small business minister after it turned out he was bullying a female staffer. In May 2010 we had the parliamentary secretary Karyn Paluzzano having to resign from her office and quit as an MP after she lied to ICAC about false claims for a parliamentary allowance. Then of course in May 2010 we had the transport minister David Campbell resign after he was filmed leaving a gay sex club. In June 2010 we had the state development minister Ian Macdonald resign after claims that he had misused taxpayer funds to pay for a trip to the Middle East.
In September 2010—here we are, just six months before the election—the ports minister Paul McLeay had to resign after revelations that he accessed sex and gambling websites on his parliamentary computer. Then in December 2010, just three months or so before the election, the new Premier Kristina Keneally, the fourth premier since Labor took government in 1995, had to sack the Labor MP Angela D’Amore as parliamentary secretary after ICAC found that she had rorted staff expense claims.
That is quite a litany and it does really show the calibre of the New South Wales Labor Party. Is that evidence not hard enough about just how hard it is for an ACT government or an ACT parliament to deal with the New South Wales government on cross-border issues, on things such as medical treatment or education, general work opportunities, commerce and cultural facilities, using the Canberra airport and ongoing tourism and recreational issues? These are all important things that the ACT government and the ACT Assembly should be able to liaise with the New South Wales government on. They should be able to do that very easily.
We can of course easily communicate with the Queanbeyan City Council. Mayor Tim Overall is very accessible and always willing to engage in cooperative dialogue when it comes to this region. When it comes down to it, the border between Canberra and Queanbeyan, the border between Canberra and Murrumbateman, or Canberra and Cooma, or Canberra and any place, the ACT and any place in our region, really is only a border when it comes to administrative reasons. The average person in the
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