Page 2924 - Week 09 - Thursday, 18 September 2014
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As I said, this has been something we have looked at on a number of occasions. Although I said this was debated in 2010 in the federal parliament, it has also been considered by the federal parliament more recently. Arising from the admin and procedure committee, the then Speaker, Mr Rattenbury, wrote to both the then Prime Minister and Minister Crean, the minister responsible at the time for local government, and said, “Here’s our committee report. Have a go at this. Have a look at this.” The Prime Minister had a copy of the report, looked at the report and wrote to Simon Crean, who had said, “Look, there’s some of this that we should be implementing,” and she said specifically, “Implement your proposal and take into account the other recommendations of the Assembly.”
The Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Labor minister, Simon Crean, were fully aware of what this Assembly had said. They had read the committee report; they had written to each other about it. They said, “Give some thought to this.” Essentially, “Take into account these other recommendations. Bring it on if you want to.” Did that occur? No. So as recently as late 2012, under the Gillard Labor government, they had been thinking about this issue, and clearly, by virtue of the fact that Simon Crean did not bring on this issue, they decided, “No, we don’t agree. We’re not going to support that. We don’t think that is the right way to go.”
We will not be supporting this motion today, for the reasons I have outlined. The minister, or Mr Rattenbury as he is in this guise, made the point, “We can walk and chew gum. We can do both. This is a matter of priorities.” But I reflect on, just this week, the priorities we have seen from those opposite as opposed to the priorities we have seen from the opposition.
We have seen from the opposition questions and motions focusing on issues like our hospital system—a hospital that is clearly in crisis. We saw only yesterday the director-general saying, “Unless your life or limbs are at risk, don’t come here.” They are the issues we are focusing on. With respect to nurses being assaulted, we saw a number of nurses here yesterday, and we had the motion moved by Mrs Jones about nurses who are in fear of their own safety.
We had a motion from Mr Doszpot about the education system. Schools are at capacity—schools that are in the same areas where this government closed schools—and infrastructure in those schools that is less than adequate. There was a debate put forward by Mr Coe about the state of our city centre, about the decaying nature of our city centre, the lack of vibrancy in our city centre. From Mr Smyth we heard about the state of our tourism sector—so important for jobs, for employment, for the economic development of this town.
We are seeing from those opposite debates about euthanasia, about renewables and about light rail. I think people can form their own judgement. They need to make a decision. Do they want a government focused on renewables, light rail and euthanasia? That is what this mob talk about all the time. That is the only time you will get any passion from this lot opposite. Or do you want a political party or a government that is focused on health, on education, on the state of our city, on employment and on the safety of the government’s workforce, and in particular nurses?
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