Page 2756 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 September 2014
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We know that Mr Rattenbury will come in here all pure and innocent, but what about behind the scenes? Remember that this is the mob that has taken $50,000 from the CFMEU. While Mr Rattenbury is trying to be Mr Pure, his priorities are for sale. Mr Rattenbury’s priorities are for sale. He has taken 50,000 bucks from the CFMEU, whilst he is coming in here talking about environmentalism. And he is taking $30,000—his party is—from professional gamblers while he is talking about the evils of gambling. We know where Mr Rattenbury’s priorities are. They lie very fairly and squarely with “$800 million into my electorate in the inner north and as much money as we can funnel into the party from people whom we try and pretend we would not support in the Assembly although behind the scenes it is very different”.
I just have to correct a couple of things that the Chief Minister was saying. The health infrastructure program, I would accept, is a very big infrastructure program, as it should be. But it is not a project. It is a hospital car park, a women and children’s hospital and a nurse-led walk-in centre—three very discrete projects. The biggest project in the territory’s history is light rail. I am not going to be snowballed and no-one in the community can be under any illusion that this is not the biggest capital investment that this territory has ever made on any project. I would refer back to some previous examples with this government. With health infrastructure we have seen blowouts in various projects. But let us not forget the dam, let us not forget the GDE and let us not forget the jail.
I am not surprised by the rhetoric and the actions of the government this week. You have to remember, Madam Assistant Speaker, that shortly after the last election it was Mr Rattenbury, in front of the media, who said that he wanted the government to be the most green and the most progressive government in Australia. So we should not be surprised. Katy Gallagher followed and said, “Well, we would wear that with pride.” This is the point. We have a government, based on their actions just this week, that are focused on their priorities and on what matters to them. Increasingly, as Mr Wall identified, after 13 years of Labor, they have become increasingly detached from the people that they are supposed to represent.
As a consequence, we are seeing the cost of living going through the roof. Just in this budget alone, I remember on the Thursday when the budget was passed that we had essentially four bills, including the appropriation bill, putting up everybody’s cost of living, and not just incrementally—be it rates or other fees and charges—but in most cases you look at rates going up 10 per cent and other fees and charges going up two or three times the rate of CPI. How is that affordable? That is a consequence of this government’s agenda.
The other consequence is the degradation in the delivery of services. When you look at those services, when you look at some of the debates that we have been having, when you look at what has been reported in the media and when you look at the motions that we will be debating in this place tomorrow, you will see, when it comes to health, a hospital that is now so full that the clinical director of ED is saying it is unsafe. He is talking about the impact of that on mortality. As much as the Chief Minister wants to come in here and boast about nurse-led walk-in centres and so on, the reality is that this is a hospital that is full. After 13 years of Labor, the legacy is a
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