Page 5996 - Week 14 - Thursday, 8 December 2011
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clear from listening to the debate that the points made by Mr Seselja with regard to these amendments and with regard to this bill are entirely valid. Essentially we will be transporting the economic benefit that could come out of a scheme like this outside the ACT and into the region. I think that the comments that Mr Seselja made about the region are quite apt. Although Mr Rattenbury did not like the fact that Mr Seselja had exposed how far away some of these places are and how remote they are, I think it is quite apt to realise that this is going to be transporting economic benefit that should be tied to the ACT elsewhere.
This is coming off the back of a debate today about the cost of living pressures on Canberra families. This is taking economic benefit out of the ACT while also coming up with a scheme that is going to be costly to taxpayers in the ACT, for no environmental benefit. As Mr Seselja rightly points out, and as Richard Denniss has quite rightly pointed out, this will be absorbed into the targets set nationally by other jurisdictions. We support good environmental policy and we support good economic policy. But this is neither. This is neither sound economically nor is it sound environmentally.
I just question what Shane Rattenbury has got against the people of the ACT. He seems to want to be MLA for the region, a bit like Bob Brown, who wants to be senator for Australia.
Mr Seselja: Senator for the world.
MR HANSON: Senator for the world; that is right. I know that Shane Rattenbury thinks big. He knows he can be the Speaker while also commenting on jurisdictional issues and national issues, and he is certainly a big thinker. But I think in this case he would do well to narrow his thinking to what matters to the people of the ACT, what is important to the people of the ACT and what is going to have an effect on the people of the ACT, rather than his perpetual grandstanding.
It looks good, I am sure, next time he is having lunch with Bob Brown and talking about whether he is going to take a ministry or not. He can talk about some of these efforts that he has made: “Look what I’ve done, Bob. Look what I’ve been able to do.” And this will look good on the national Greens stage, on the agenda. It is probably not so good for working families out in—where is Ms Bresnan’s electorate? I forget. Tuggeranong; that is right. She occasionally visits there.
Mr Seselja: She considers that the region.
MR HANSON: That is the region. That is the way it works. Ms Hunter occasionally visits Belconnen because it is in the region of the ACT. Therefore, that is good enough: “That’s part of my electorate so that’ll do.” I think that Amanda Bresnan, Shane Rattenbury and Meredith Hunter would be better off focusing on things that are of benefit to the people of the ACT rather than on what might be of benefit to people elsewhere, either economically in what has been defined as a very large region or in terms of the environment in a national sense.
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