Page 2063 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 6 August 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
amendment from Mr Barr and that Mr Rattenbury would be supporting the government’s motion. That is the reason I spoke the way I did. If you cannot handle that, Mr Rattenbury, I suggest you have a talk to us earlier—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, please address your remarks through the chair.
MR DOSZPOT: I thought I was, Mr Assistant Speaker, and I am addressing them through you. Just to go back to Mr Rattenbury, you can actually correct the current stance that you have taken. You have admitted that the motion that we brought before this Assembly, through you Mr Assistant Speaker, carries a lot of the wishes that the community has brought to our attention. And that is correct. Our motion is based very much on community consultation and what the community has identified. We as an opposition have to keep the government under scrutiny. That is our task. That is all we are doing, but we are doing it with the knowledge of what the community wants.
There are eight members of the government in this chamber and there are eight members of the opposition. Mr Rattenbury stands across this divide as a member of the government. He has often had the opportunity over the last two years to actually keep the government accountable, which was his promise as third-party insurance that his party offered to this chamber.
Mr Rattenbury has the opportunity this morning to actually back a motion that he agrees with, but it appears that he agrees more with the government which actually has deleted some very minor parts of the motion. Through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, the ball is in Mr Rattenbury’s court and I invite him to change his mind. I think it is a measure of a man that he can see that the community has voiced their concerns. We have simply repeated the concerns of the community.
We ask you to join us in supporting the motion that we are putting before this government, which is not all that different to what Mr Barr is trying to amend. I express no lack of surprise that Mr Barr has seen fit to offer an amendment which is more semantics and theatre than substance. Equally, it comes as no surprise that Mr Rattenbury, as the ninth member of the government at this stage, is supporting his fellow travellers.
I do note, however, that in all the semantics there are some slippery non-committal words that the residents of Molonglo should take careful note of. Their own Labor MLA is not committing to improved traffic management, but that should come as no surprise. As Mr Barr indicated to me in estimates, and if I may paraphrase through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, “There, there, Steve. Don’t you worry about any of that. We will look after it.”
We see today how he intends to look after traffic management issues. He is suggesting that traffic management planning will give consideration to the intersection of Cotter Road and Adelaide Avenue. Mr Coe has already discussed this avenue quite extensively. As we all know, giving consideration to the intersection of Cotter Road and Adelaide Avenue is code for, “We will not commit, but we will pretend we are listening.” However, I do thank everyone who has spoken on this motion today. I thank Mr Hanson for his constant support of our work in this area.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video