Page 262 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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The Canberra Liberals will continue to work hard for the people of Tuggeranong. We believe Tuggeranong is one of those places that have been very much neglected by a government that has got a very inward-looking focus. The outer suburbs like Tuggeranong and Gungahlin and Belconnen do not seem to rate very highly for ACT Labor, and no more so than the people of Tharwa. They have been neglected, and we pay tribute to the likes of Val Jeffery, who has shown such great leadership. Val is respected not just in Tharwa, where he resides and has been with his store for a long time; he is also well respected right across Canberra, particularly in the Tuggeranong Valley and surrounds, where he is well known for his community contributions.
The people of Tharwa deserve better; the people of Tuggeranong deserve better than what they are getting from ACT Labor. The Canberra Liberals are focused on listening to their community concerns—whether it is about pollution in Lake Tuggeranong, whether it is about footpaths, whether it is about parking at Tuggeranong or Erindale or Chisholm, whether it is about what to do about Kambah and the centre there—and we are committed to addressing those local issues suburb by suburb.
We are going to focus on what really matters to Canberra families—their local services and lowering their cost of living. You can only do that if you do not waste money in the way this government has and you make decisions to target the money where it is most needed. That is our commitment. That will continue to be our commitment, and we look forward to working with the Tuggeranong community to ensure that we get much better outcomes for Tuggeranong than we have seen over the past several years.
MR DOSZPOT (Brindabella) (8.38): I take great pleasure in speaking on this motion moved by my colleague Mr Smyth, who has been a very active representative in the Tuggeranong area for quite a while and has been voicing his concern about the ongoing neglect over many years that Tuggeranong has suffered at the hands of Labor. I guess it is interesting to reflect too that Labor did have three representatives going into the 2004 election—Karin MacDonald, Mick Gentleman and John Hargreaves—and at the end of 2008 I think it was down to two, was it not?
Mr Seselja: I think it is now down to one in cruising mode.
Mr Hanson: One in cruising mode.
MR DOSZPOT: Yes. That could be a very good point. Mr Seselja mentioned—
Mr Coe: There is a strong correlation between that and Simon’s vote.
MR DOSZPOT: Yes. Mr Seselja quite rightly pointed out that Mr Hargreaves is missing in action in Tuggeranong these days and Ms Burch, I am afraid to say, has not exactly filled Mr Hargreaves’s boots, let alone her own. So it is an interesting—
Ms Burch: And what are you going to be doing, Steve, sitting on the border, going from one to the other?
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