Page 5082 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 26 October 2011
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It is clear that Mr Seselja seems not to care about the empty shops in Civic. He did not seem to care at all about the increasingly monopolistic influence that the Canberra Centre has and the increasing rents that leaseholders in the city or prospective leaseholders are facing. All of these issues were the substance of the motion and were the sorts of things that Ms Le Couteur raised earlier today. Unfortunately Mr Seselja did not see fit to touch on any of those, and that is a real shame because I think that many Canberrans do recognise that this is a substantive issue, one that warrants a discussion.
At least Mr Corbell did speak on the issues and he sought to set out some things the government are doing. We do not entirely agree with that analysis, obviously. I think that more can be done and that is where Ms Le Couteur, far from lacking focus or putting varied requests, has actually sought to constructively put forward a range of suggestions derived from talking with stakeholders. People are actually talking to us about these issues and Ms Le Couteur in her motion has sought to capture some of those ideas and actually bring them to this Assembly. So what reflects the sheer volume of the motion is the fact that there are many ideas around about what could possibly be done and I think Ms Le Couteur has done a great job of picking up some of those ideas and some of those concerns and bringing them to the Assembly in her motion.
I note Mr Corbell’s amendment. He notes the government’s commitment to the Civic cycle loop. It is a commitment to the idea. I think we need some commitment to action. It is time that this project, which has been around for a number of years now, is actually progressed in a substantive way. I know that last year on Ride to Work Day, Mr Corbell turned up with his bike and went around the loop. Presumably he appreciated the quality of the idea, but the fact is that it is now some time later—and this idea has been around for quite some time now—and it is not actually progressing in a sort of concrete way, literally and figuratively. This reflects on the style of commitment that the government is showing here. It is a commitment to the concept but not a commitment to doing something.
Ms Le Couteur is seeking to bring some attention and bring some focus to some of these matters and get some real action as opposed to fine words and future promises. So I applaud Ms Le Couteur for bringing this forward. I would like to see the Assembly take it more seriously and I think that there are important issues to be resolved here that Ms Le Couteur has sought to bring some positive dialogue to. I commend Ms Le Couteur for bringing the motion forward.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (7.39): I was not intending to speak to this motion but, in response to Mr Rattenbury’s five-minute speech there, I think it is worth making a few points to show the irony of it. He got up to criticise Mr Seselja, complaining that Mr Seselja’s 10-minute speech lacked a detailed analysis of the substance of the motion and was more of a critique of the Greens. But Mr Rattenbury spent much of his five minutes criticising Mr Seselja. Actually, the very crime that he accused Mr Seselja of, which was not focusing on the substance of the motion and simply talking about the relative merits of a different party, is exactly what Mr Rattenbury did. It was a real case of the pot calling the kettle black.
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