Page 1429 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 14 May 2014
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budget that he will be delivering in June, he is trying to create this impression that this is going to devastate our local community. I would certainly give leave to Mr Barr to get up in this place and apologise for those words and say, “I withdraw those words. Yes, that was an overstep. I should not have said that. I will stop talking this town and this economy down.”
Andrew Barr is out there saying that it is going to devastate our local community. That is an absolutely outrageous thing to say and he needs to be condemned, not only by people on this side of the chamber but by people on that side of the chamber, for what is a very negative and very hurtful thing for our economy.
Let us go to Mr Rattenbury. I see him sniggering over there. I see him shaking his head. I see him moaning and groaning. But why have we not got the convention centre to the point where it is shovel ready? I will tell you why: all of the attention is on light rail, because Mr Rattenbury wants that tram track in his electorate before the next election so that he can go out to the good people of the inner north and say, “Look what I have delivered for you. Vote for me.” And that is what this is all about.
If this government had paid even 10 per cent of the attention to the convention centre that they are paying to light rail and set up authorities—and we called on them to set up a trust for the convention centre in October, but no, they rejected that—they would have set up an authority, as they did for light rail. They have shovelled as much money as they can into that, including hundreds of thousands of dollars for spin doctors to sell it. But you can see that this government is dropping the ball on just about everything in their pursuit of light rail to keep Shane Rattenbury on board.
We had this debate about the secure mental health facility in question time yesterday, a project that was promised three years ago and not a sod has been turned. If that was the light rail project there would have been a secure mental health facility authority. They would have had dozens of people in there working on it. They would have a spin doctor. But where is it? Where is this Chief Minister’s passion for mental health? She has got a passion for keeping Shane Rattenbury in the government. She has got a passion for keeping Simon Corbell and the left faction happy. She has got a passion for keeping the inner north voters happy. They will pursue this at any price.
But when it comes to things like the secure mental health facility or this convention centre, this government has dropped the ball. It is very disappointing. Andrew Barr talks about how this is going to devastate our community. Things like the convention centre are the opportunities that we need. They are what we need in this town to get our economy going.
Let us remember the 14,500 job cuts that came under Kevin Rudd. And we know that figure because Mr Barr got that from the treasury secretary or the finance department secretary—I cannot recall which one. I cannot remember Andrew Barr saying that was going to devastate our community, can you, when Rudd made those cuts?
Mr Smyth: That was fiscal consolidation.
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