Page 1146 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 7 May 2014
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During what will be a reasonably difficult time for this city, how about it? How about this: the challenge is that there is a unified voice on just one project? Just one! Is it digital Canberra? Is it NDIS? Is it better schools? Is it the work we are doing around renewable energy? Do you care about the environment? Do you worry about the environment that your kids are going to grow up in?
Mr Smyth: Let’s talk about Uriarra.
MS GALLAHER: Let us talk about Uriarra. Fine, I am happy to talk about Uriarra. It is very easy to play some of the local politics. It is much harder to talk about whether you actually support investment in renewable energy. You take the easy road every single time but you avoid the big issues for this city. The big issues for this city are: how do we maintain the services that we currently provide to the community whilst the city grows against a revenue base that is not growing at the speed of our city? How do we manage that whilst we build the other half of this city because the commonwealth sure is not going come and do it, which is what happened in the first part of this city’s history. We are not going to get that generosity coming from the commonwealth government; so how do we do it? How do we manage all of those competing priorities?
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you will get the opportunity to speak in this debate I am sure.
MS GALLAGHER: They are the big issues for this city, not the easy path that is always chosen by the opposition, which is to pounce on local discontent, which is valid. It is part of the democratic process, but it is much harder to rise above and actually see the big challenges and engage in that debate, the big challenges that form part of that debate.
Mr Hanson: Oh, right! Ignore the people and support the Labor Party; is that the message?
MS GALLAGHER: I am not saying that. Mr Hanson, you take over from Gary Humphries. We used to have a saying in this chamber: you are being Gary-ed. That is exactly what you do now. Someone says something and then you turn it into something much different and usually negative.
We understand the priorities of Canberrans. We are Canberrans. I notice Mr Hanson does not believe that people who live in inner-north or inner-south Canberra actually have mortgages or children to bring up. They were noticeably absent in his speech. We are Canberrans. We live across this city. We grew up in this city. We care about this city. Our children are the future of this city. We are everyday Canberrans who live, shop, go to the schools, take part in school functions, who are enrolled in after-school activities, who do the local shopping centres, who do their shopping, who talk to people all the time. All of us do that.
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