Page 717 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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But when the shoe is on the other foot, what we then see is this moral, pious sort of view from the Labor Party: “We are all above politics. We should not be talking about this. This demeans us. This is just grubby politics. We should get on with the business of the day. There is nothing to see here.” It is entirely hypocritical. This sort of view that Mr Hargreaves has that he is not political, that he separates the roles and he comes into this chamber as a completely un-political character or something is just fanciful. It is bizarre. They only play that role when they are caught out. When they are caught out, and as Mr Hargreaves readily is, whether it be about the Tuggeranong Community Council, whether it be about sexist comments, whether it be about running down one of his own members and making a joke of one of his own members, all of a sudden they play the straight “we should not be doing this sort of stuff; this is all beneath us”. And it is.
But the point is that they do it harder than anyone, and we have seen that over the last couple of weeks. If you want vicious politics, if you want to see people playing the man, playing Mr Seselja, playing the president of the Liberal Party or Mr Seselja’s staff, you can see them go at it as hard as nails. But when we make a point that Mr Hargreaves has behaved in a manner that has led him to write letters of apology, that has led him to resign as the government whip—they are hardly allegations that we are making up; they are the facts—then all of a sudden we are the grubby politicians.
This is the contradiction. The Labor Party have this born-to-rule attitude: “We are on the moral high ground, the light on the hill.” But the reality is something very different. What you see from the Labor Party is grubby politicking. You saw grubby politicking from Mr Hargreaves over the last couple of weeks when it came to the issue of timesheets, going hard. But when the shoe is on the other foot he comes into this place all pious.
All he was doing was passing a note to Mr Coe because he wants to keep a line of communication going with the opposition. Rubbish! He passed a note to Mr Coe because he wanted to ridicule, demean and have a joke at his colleague Mr Barr. That was what it was. It was all about the pre-selection Labor internal warfare. Mr Hargreaves was dudded in various deals, he had had a falling out with Mr Barr and he wanted to ridicule him and rubbish him and have a joke with the opposition. That is what this is about. And to come in now and try to say that this is about maintaining the lines of communication, what a bizarre way to do it.
If that was genuine, “Let’s maintain a line of communication by ridiculing my colleagues”—really?—he is fit to be a member of the Labor Party? And as much as we have talked about his role as Assistant Speaker today, the question I would be asking myself if I was Katy Gallagher, and the question she needs to explain to the community, is: why the hell is this man in the Labor Party? Why the hell is this man a member of this Assembly that she supports?
I am very confused about that. She says he is a good Labor man. We have seen repeated incidents. He is not fit to be the government whip. He is not fit to be an Assistant Speaker. We have seen him resign as whip, as he should. He should resign as Assistant Speaker. But I will tell you what, if I were Katy Gallagher and this was a
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