Page 598 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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the community council but a problem with the Liberals. That was his excuse—that he was really attacking Mr Smyth. That is what Mr Hargreaves said. But that is not true, because, when you read what he said on the Wednesday night, the first words out of Mr Hargreaves’s mouth were to praise Mr Smyth. He came in here and praised Mr Smyth and then what we saw was an outpouring of bile directed at the Tuggeranong Community Council—and it had nothing to do with the Liberal Party, absolutely nothing. It was a vindictive attack on a community organisation.
Mr Smyth has told us what Mr Hargreaves said. He has shown us that the word “geriatric” was used and he has quoted its meaning from the dictionary: derogatory or offensive, old, obsolescent, worn out or useless. So when Mr Hargreaves stands in this place, as he just did, and tries to con everybody that this happened because he was so upset at the Liberal Party and therefore that, accidentally almost, in his state, he attacked the Tuggeranong Community Council but is very sorry for that, that is not true. Read the Hansard. There is nothing to do with the Liberal Party here. This is all to do with the Tuggeranong Community Council and the fact that Mr Hargreaves decided to attack a community organisation in a most vile and disgusting manner, in an inexcusable manner.
We had not seen an apology until today. It has taken a week before Mr Hargreaves has apologised publicly for this. And we still have not seen an apology from the Chief Minister. We have seen a letter from her, which says that she supports the community council, but there is no mention of an apology in there. So there is no apology from the government, and this is the first time I have heard any form of apology from Mr Hargreaves. And well he might apologise, because what we are seeing is hypocrisy from this government and from this government member.
Yesterday Joy Burch stood up here, tabled the report from the Older Persons Assembly and talked about the need for more respect for older people—more respect. The government are going to tell schoolchildren to be more respectful of older members, while Mr Hargreaves was in the chamber slagging off at older Canberrans and using a derogatory term to attack community organisations.
We have seen Labor policies—you can go back to the election in 2008, look at their website and see what they had to say—about older Canberrans and what they were going to do:
The Canberra community is ageing faster than most Australian cities. That is why ACT Labor is building a city for all ages, a city that extends to every Canberran an opportunity to be fully engaged in the life of the community, whatever their age and whatever their capacity.
But it seems that that is unless you are in the Tuggeranong Community Council. So it seems that “whatever their age, whatever their capacity” they should be “fully engaged in the life of the community”—unless it is the Tuggeranong Community Council.
You can go through the hypocrisy of the government’s statements in their press releases, which stand in direct contrast to the actions of Mr Hargreaves in this place
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