Page 885 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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construction industry misses out in this not going ahead. The health and wellbeing of the people particularly of Lanyon may well miss out because they do not have a bulk-billing medical practice down there.
It does raise an interesting question about the views of the minister about what the Assembly is for. Behind your head, Madam Assistant Speaker, the shield says, “For the Queen, the Law, and the People”. Apparently, the people do not get a rating in here because, under Andrew Barr’s theory, you should not bring individual circumstances of people here. I find that quite disgraceful. When somebody comes to me and says, “I’m at my wit’s end. Do whatever you can for me,” I will do whatever I can for them. That can involve bringing it to this place and having, hopefully, a reasonable discussion, which certainly has come from one side of this chamber but not from the other today.
We look up there at the words, “For the Queen, the Law, and the People,” but maybe it is for the executive, the revenue and the Greens. Maybe that is what the motto of the ACT should be changed to. When we forget that we are elected to represent the individuals that come to our offices, who contact us or who seek our assistance and we get this bizarre notion from the Treasurer that that should not, if necessary, culminate in it coming to the Assembly, then you really have to question what some members of this place are in this place for.
In respect of every letter that I have written to you, minister, that you have accepted or rejected, I have not then turned around and come to this place. But in some cases I do. We do it on a merits system. We did it on merit, and I will continue to do it.
Mr Barr: Fine. I’m not going to be intimidated by that.
MR SMYTH: It was not an attempt to intimidate you.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: There is no need to address Mr Barr, thank you.
MR SMYTH: This is bizarre. Now if you bring the concerns of an individual to the Assembly to ask the assistance of their Assembly in trying to get a just and fair outcome from the government, it is intimidation. Andrew Barr will not be intimidated if I bring a motion to the Assembly on an individual case. There you go. This is just spinning out of control.
I think what the individual over there is showing is that he should not be sitting in the top seat because that is his attitude to the ordinary punter, to the ordinary citizen, to the doctor, to the small businessman, to the husband, to the father who is out there. That is truly a sad day for this place. He is intimidated by the fact that an individual’s concerns are brought to this place. I think you are damning yourself by your own words.
This is a reasonable motion. This place is for the Queen, the law and the people, and “the people” probably should be in much bigger letters because obviously some people in this place forget the people. It is about what we do that affects the lives of
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