Page 5076 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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Everyone knows that they are part of a coalition here. If they wanted to get it done, it would be done by now. They have been effectively partners in government for the last three years. The community would be asking themselves the question, “What have we got as a result?”
I think the Greens are awake to the fact that the community is asking that question, because we see this desperate rush. We see this last minute rush to say: “No, no, really we are committed. We are achieving things, even if we are leaving them to the last minute. No, this is really, actually, very, very important to us.” It is very difficult to take the Greens seriously on this. It is very difficult for business or anyone in the community to take the Greens seriously on this.
I could go through any number of the actual elements of this motion. I would start with what we heard from Ms Le Couteur this morning. I think her words in relation to the motion this morning were that the Assembly should not be involved in the nitty-gritty of planning. That was her position this morning. The Assembly should not be involved in the nitty-gritty of planning, and then she comes back with a 22-paragraph motion doing just that. Nitty-gritty is bad if it is the Liberal Party calling for it, but if it is the Greens, it is the good nitty-gritty. It is the good nitty-gritty of planning.
Of course, I would say to Ms Le Couteur that if she wanted to do the nitty-gritty of planning, she could have used her position as a coalition partner to get this stuff done. We would not have to debate it in the Assembly. They could have said: “If you want your budget passed, if you want to stay in government, we have got a few demands. Here they are and they are going to be done. If not, you will not have your budget passed. You will not have supply. You will not be in government anymore.”
But they did not. They did not because the Greens rolled over. For the last three years they have been rolling over. Now they are suddenly saying to themselves: “We need to start standing up to our coalition partners. We need to start demanding some things from them.” How they do that is to come into the Assembly with ill thought out motions. That is what we have here today.
I would like to touch on a couple of the areas where I think there is particular hypocrisy from the Greens in this motion. One is on the issue of outdoor cafes. We know that Mrs Dunne has been the person who has been highlighting the position of and fighting for the cafe owners in Canberra who have been subjected to outrageous requirements by this government, outrageous micromanagement of their businesses by this government. Of course, she has received no support for that position from the Greens. In fact, if she had received support we actually could have seen significant changes to some of those regulations.
Let us have a look at some of what the government was doing. I will read from Mrs Dunne’s press release. It states:
Mrs Dunne said the 25 page draft policy document puts up so many barriers, creates so many intricate rules and exposes cafe owners to such a burdensome regime of bureaucratic inspections and interpretations that it will make it difficult to understand what will and will not be allowed, much less comply with them.
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