Page 785 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 27 February 2013
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Today, here we sit, with the first item of business and the new Leader of the Opposition cannot manage to articulate a coherent view about the future of our city and instead resorts to the stale, negative carping we have all become used to from those opposite. The Canberra Liberals do not want to be innovators or early adopters as to do so would involve taking a risk, having a belief in something, a desire to do the right thing, not necessarily the politically convenient thing, and—shock, horror!—perhaps developing a policy.
Remember that policy? What was it? Actually, it was legislation—a 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Who introduced that? I think it was Mr Seselja. That is right. Remember that? That was legislation brought into this place. Well, you have not stopped running a mile from that. That was actually genuine policy, a genuine contribution to the political discourse in this chamber. And what do we see? Running a mile and just resorting to these glib, half-baked politically convenient motions to waste the Assembly’s time this morning.
The events of the last few weeks have made it very clear that the Liberals are not keen on anything they consider progressive. Gary Humphries—may he rest in peace—was the final progressive moderate in the Canberra Liberals’ representation, and look what has happened to him.
We stand proudly by our initiatives. We stood proudly in the election, and, in case those opposite did not notice, the Labor-Greens vote was 50 per cent of the ACT community. We stand proudly by the initiatives we took to the election for renewable energy targets and the light rail project. Let us just recall the days after the election. Who was on the radio? Mr Seselja was saying, “Yes, no, very happy with light rail, actually.” I think that was when he was trying to negotiate the support of Mr Rattenbury. “Very happy with light rail, actually.” Apparently light rail had always been important to the Canberra Liberals. But we stand proudly by our initiatives around climate change. Again, the Liberals stood proudly by them for about five minutes before they worked out that it was not really the flavour of the day so, “Let’s run away from that 30 per cent target.”
We stand proudly by the issue of dealing with intravenous drug use in prisons. We stand proudly by the jail. Here we have the Leader of the Opposition basically saying, “Let’s ship all our prisoners to New South Wales. It’s cheaper. It’s cheaper in New South Wales. Let’s get rid of them.” What a disgraceful point of view. Have you met a prisoner? They have families. They have kids. They have connections. “Right, so let’s just ship them all off, our second-rate citizens. They haven’t really made the grade. Got into a bit of trouble with the law. We actually don’t want you in the ACT. We don’t want a jail.” Well, we stand proudly by the decision to build a jail.
We stand proudly by the decision to invest in health infrastructure—the women’s and children’s hospital and the new mental health unit. Are these all extreme policies? Walk-in centres, the integrated cancer centre, revitalised community health centres. Again, if they are extreme then I proudly wear the label. Kingsford Smith School, Harrison School, Namadgi School, Gungahlin College, Franklin Early Childhood School, Neville Bonner school, doubling the number of childcare places—are they
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