Page 2731 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 June 2011
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Mr Smyth: No; it is not true. It is just not true. It is just not true.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Smyth says, “It is not true; it is not true; it is not true.” Me thinketh that he protesteth too much. I can also tell the Assembly that there was a two-year delay whilst litigation was undertaken at the encouragement of those people opposite, using their mates on the hill who were ceremoniously dumped at the election before last. That cost us two years delay in starting the project. It also cost us a significant cost increase. I can recall, for example, that the cost of diesel over that period went up 17 per cent. And the conservative cost of the overall impost to the ACT taxpayer was $23 million. These are the same people who decide they want to criticise us for the capital works program. Now, what is interesting—
Mr Coe: Why didn’t you hedge that? You should have hedged that.
MR HARGREAVES: Excuse me.
Mr Coe: You should have hedged it.
MR HARGREAVES: Why don’t you just go away and be quiet? Thank you.
Mr Coe: A bit surly today.
MR HARGREAVES: I am surly? Am I surly? Through you, Madam Assistant Speaker, the young fellow ain’t seen nothing yet.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Hanson, you are such a boor. You really are a boor. You are a boor and a bully, you are, but you do not frighten me. Why don’t you just disappear back into your hole?
Mrs Dunne made an incredible statement just then, and I congratulate her for this because we have not seen it out of the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition or the assistant Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She said, “The Canberra Liberals are the only party to have a way forward.” I will say that again in case members missed it: “The Canberra Liberals are the only party to have a way forward.”
I would like to know what it is. What I hear is opposition for opposition’s sake. I hear, “This is what the government is doing wrong. This is what they are not doing.” I do not hear, and have not heard for the last 2½ years, anything that they have done except deliver a whole stack of white noise into this particular chamber. I will challenge any one of those people opposite to stand up now and tell us the way forward. Tell us what you would do. Mrs Dunne says that you are the only party that has got it. Well, let us hear it. Let us hear it or back down. Back down if you can’t do it. Admit the fact that you are nothing short of a policy-free zone.
Mr Smyth: Back down?
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