Page 4632 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Today I hope the Liberal Party will put aside the churlishness that has prevented them from supporting previous motions along the lines of today’s, and say unequivocally that they embrace the potential gift being offered to our democratic processes by the bill that is now before our federal colleagues in the national parliament.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (11.54): If Dr Bourke is planning on improving on his 13th place in Ginninderra from the last election, he is going to have to do a little bit better than this, Madam Deputy Speaker. He is going to have to take up issues that the people of his electorate actually care about. And perhaps it is because of Wally motions like this and ideas that have been put forward by Dr Bourke that he achieved such an overwhelming amount of support that put him in 13th place in the last ACT election.
Let us look at what Dr Bourke is asking us to support today. He is actually asking us to support a motion that says, not that the legislation should go through in the federal parliament; today he has come into this place, representing the people of Ginninderra, and instead of calling on the government to deliver on core services or address the cost of living, he is saying that we should support a motion—he has taken his one slot. Dr Bourke does not get that many slots on private members’ day but he has taken his one slot for this week and he has said, “We should vote not to call on the commonwealth parliament to pass something but we should have a vote that says, ‘Given the commonwealth parliament is going to pass this legislation with the Labor Party and the Greens, we also want Nick Xenophon, the coalition and the DLP senator to all vote for this legislation.’”
That is what this motion calls on us to do. It says: “The legislation is going through. The Labor Party and the Greens federally have made a decision to push it through. But what we really need and what is most important to the people of Ginninderra is a unanimous vote in the federal parliament because Dr Bourke has brought this motion forward today.” This is ridiculous. These kinds of ridiculous motions do no credit to the member and they do no credit to the Labor Party.
The other aspect of this, apart from putting aside the core service delivery and cost-of-living issues that I am sure Mr Coe could tell us exist in Ginninderra as much as they do in Brindabella and Molonglo—and in parts even more so—and the saddest part of this motion is that we see, let us face it, a once-great Labor Party reduced to begging for the scraps. They are reduced to saying: “Look, we couldn’t get a review through. We couldn’t get a genuine look at the self-government act so we really need Bob Brown’s legislation to get up.”
It is the Greens tail wagging the Labor dog. And this once-proud Labor Party is now reduced to this kind of language. We are being asked, “Please, please, please, let’s call on the coalition, let’s call on Senator Xenophon and let’s call on the DLP to support Bob Brown’s legislation because we couldn’t get a genuine relook at self-government.” That is because the Labor Party could not get it done. It failed, so it is reduced to begging for the scraps.
This legislation will go through, and I think it will make very little difference to the lives of ordinary Canberrans. I think that, with this legislation going through, the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video