Page 1077 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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The government is committed to reducing the outsourcing of entry level jobs and increasing opportunities to directly employed trainees and apprentices in the public sector and will also work to ensure that contractors on large-scale capital works projects funded by the ACT government engage an agreed minimal level of trainees and apprentices.
I welcome the opportunity to once again highlight the leadership, experience and forward-looking policies of this government. As the Chief Minister said last Tuesday at our centenary toast, we are proud of our nation’s capital. We are proud of our home. We are proud of what has been achieved in our first 100 years and we are excited about the next 100 years. Leadership must be more than having long-term goals and a way of achieving these. Leadership must also be flexible and adaptable. It must be responsive and transparent. It must be accountable to the community.
As the centenary celebrations have shown, Canberrans are proud of their community, their city and their home. There is growing recognition in our community, in our business sector and in our region that the future of Canberra and the achievement of our city’s vision require a commitment from all of us. Strong government leadership is required to drive the community, business and regional linkages needed to achieve our vision. (Time expired.)
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.16): I thank Dr Bourke for bringing this motion on. It is always entertaining, if nothing else, when Dr Bourke speaks. The Canberra Liberals will not be supporting this motion today. There are some elements I do agree with, but much of it is just about self-congratulation and much of it is rhetoric that is not happening from this government.
We hear from Dr Bourke explanations about strong leadership. It is ironic, when he was sacked recently as a minister to make way for someone from another party, that this strong leadership he is talking about is something that he espouses. It is interesting that the view of his own parliamentary party and his own Chief Minister was that they did not want him as a minister.
He also talks in language about progressive policies. It is important to talk about what this government means and what the Greens mean when they talk about “progressive” in this jurisdiction. You will recall, Madam Acting Speaker, that after the election Minister Rattenbury—I do not think he was a minister at that stage, though he was certainly angling to be a minister—said, “I am going to make this the most progressive, the most green jurisdiction in Australia.” We know what he means by that, don’t we? In the definition of the Labor Party and the Greens, “progressive” means as hard left as you can get. It means socialist. It means all of those sorts of things.
I was reflecting on what this mob mean by the word “progressive”. I saw a tweet in the lead-up to the last election. Obviously Katy had been out there reining in the troops in the lead-up to the last election and had been to a Labor Party meeting. This is a tweet from the young Labor left, all of Katy’s young Labor left followers: “Great to see that despite becoming Chief Minister, Katy Gallagher MLA still uses the word
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