Page 3960 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 30 October 2013
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It was your response to the financial implications that you were putting before this Assembly that prompted the AEIOU to put the correct details on the table. Mr Rattenbury says, “Well, this is the first I have heard of it.” Mr Rattenbury, I am very disappointed with your comment on that, because you have had—
Mr Corbell: On a point of order—
MR DOSZPOT: Through the chair, Mr Rattenbury has had contact through his advisers with AEIOU on at least one if not on a number of occasions. So for him to say this is the first he has heard of it is disingenuous and rather duplicitous.
Mr Corbell: On a point of order—
MADAM SPEAKER: Yes, I am across it, Mr Corbell. To accuse someone of being duplicitous is to accuse them of being untruthful, and I ask you to withdraw, Mr Doszpot.
MR DOSZPOT: Madam Speaker, I withdraw, and I apologise to Mr Rattenbury on that point. This is a very emotive issue, and it is one that has been percolating in this Assembly for quite some time. I apologise for that comment. But I do not apologise for bringing the facts to the table. Things are in progress, and everyone is aware of that except, apparently, our minister for disability and our leader of the Greens or minister or whatever way we want to describe our colleague Mr Rattenbury. But the opportunities are here for us. Ms Burch, I welcome one aspect of your motion in that apart from the fact that you left out AEIOU—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, can you please address the chair.
MR DOSZPOT: Once again, Madam Speaker, through you, I am quite disappointed at paragraph (3) of the minister’s amendment where she calls on the Assembly to recognise the ACT government’s willingness to explore new and innovative ways of supporting people with disability. What we are saying is almost identical except for the deletion by Ms Burch of the AEIOU. You know this is going on. Why does it hurt—through the chair, Madam Speaker—what is the problem for the minister to recognise the fact that this discussion is going on and that the ACT government is willing to look at the AEIOU proposal? We are not asking for an absolute endorsement; we are asking for an opportunity for the Assembly, united on a bipartisan note, to examine together something that is of benefit to our community. That is what we are asking for.
I will close the debate on the motion in my name. I just ask Minister Burch and Minister Rattenbury to face the facts as they are before us. These entities are in discussion. I am not trying to create an issue, and that is the reason I have not spoken to the University of Canberra. Whether the minister can speak or should have spoken to the University of Canberra, of course, is a different matter, and whether she should have, in fact, spoken to AEIOU is also open to debate. I do not understand why she finds it appropriate to talk to the Ricky Stuart Foundation but not to AEIOU. They complement each other, and the Ricky Stuart Foundation has given a lot of support to
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