Page 134 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 11 February 2015

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MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, thank you for your advice. Could you just be quiet, please?

Mr Hanson: Sure.

DR BOURKE: They do not like my strong advocacy for my constituents. They do not like it, but I make no apology for that. It is what I was elected to do. This, after all, is supposed to be the second day of good government. What about the previous days, Madam Deputy Speaker? They must have been bad government. Mrs Dunne clearly agrees that this is a bad plan to move Immigration out of Belconnen.

However, I would say it is just as well that Mrs Dunne has not been doorknocking small businesses in Belconnen because some of those apologist lines that she used in her speech would not go down well—lines like, “Not everyone who works in Immigration lives in Belconnen,” that she does not want another north side-south side issue and that it could be okay as long as they stay in Canberra. The forgotten people—and I mention the Liberal Party under Menzies—the shopkeepers, the professionals and the small business people, are not going to like that kind of line in Belconnen.

Then we get Mr Hanson, in his speech and in his interjections, wanting to threaten the Belconnen community unless they suck it up quietly. He wants to tell Canberrans more about how good Scott Morrison has been in Border Protection. This is chaotic Liberal thinking. If today is the day after the federal government started good government, let us hope they take notice of the reasons outlined here today—

Mr Hanson: It is no wonder you are not a minister.

MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson!

DR BOURKE: You will never be one. Let us hope they take notice of the reasons outlined here today by both parties for keeping the department of immigration in Belconnen. Perhaps, as with the South Australian submarine deal, on the next bill Senator Seselja could bargain his vote in favour of Belconnen.

Motion, as amended, agreed to.

Budget review 2014-2015

MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.25): I move:

That this Assembly:

(1) notes the Government’s 2014-15 Budget Review that:

(a) the Territory’s budget deficit has blown out from $332.8 million to $770.5 million;


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