Page 1445 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 6 April 2011
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Jon Stanhope thinks the Liberals stand for nothing. That is one of his quotes. I will tell you what: we do not accept the position on an NSP. We have a very clear position on an NSP. The Greens have a very clear position on an NSP. What is Simon Corbell’s position on an NSP? What is this government’s position on an NSP? We do not know. They have been talking about it for two years. They have been stuffing around the guards and they have been stuffing around the staff at that jail, with these threats of an NSP. What is their position? Are we ever going to find out? So do not come down here and say that the Liberals do not have a position on anything. We have a very clear position. The Greens do. It is Labor that does not.
I will move to the Greens. I went out to talk to the media before and they had a question. It was: “The Greens will not be supporting you because they have not got enough detail.” This censure motion today is probably the most detailed censure motion in the history of the Assembly. As I said, it is five pages. I invite members to go through it in detail. I suggest members of the media go through it in detail, and they will see it is exhaustive. And for the Greens to say, “We will not support it because there is not enough detail,” is extraordinary and I think goes to the point that the Greens will support Simon Corbell or Katy Gallagher, whichever minister it is, regardless of their failures, regardless of how inept they are. They will just come up with any excuse.
Today Amanda Bresnan picked an excuse but how could she possibly justify the most detailed motion that I have certainly seen in the Assembly as lacking in any detail? And I know that the Assembly staff are probably shuddering at the thought that I will come back with a more detailed motion. What does she want? Ten pages? Fifteen pages? What is the level of detail Amanda Bresnan needs? So it is not that he is not inept, not that “Yes, there are some disastrous problems to be proved,” just a lack of detail. After looking at this jail and all the problems for so long, what we see from the Greens is simply a call for an NSP rather than holding the government to account on some substantial problems.
The question to be asked is: how many cases of transfer of hep C have we had in the jail? That seems to be in dispute. But if you talk to Corrective Services, the answer is zero. So this is a problem that is currently affecting zero people. Nobody has had a transfer of hep C. This is the problem that the Greens are demanding action on and the Labor Party is in so much conflict on.
But what we do know is that last week a woman was convicted in the ACT of having conducted robberies over a period of five years, with a needle, and she was sentenced to jail for seven years. Currently—I am assuming she has gone to the AMC, if it is not too full for her—there is a woman there who has been robbing people, who has been threatening shop staff and security guards with a needle, and the Greens and certainly Simon Corbell and some sections of the Labor Party want to arm her with needles.
Simon Corbell has got very little defence and it is remarkable how this minister has so ignored, in his own defence and throughout question time, the Burnet Institute report.
Mr Corbell interjecting—
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