Page 30 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 10 February 2015
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Chief Minister, if you do not support this motion today, if you continue to support this minister who no longer has the faith of the community, who everybody who is commentating on this says is not fit to be a minister and is only there because of the lack of talent elsewhere, that reflects on your judgement. Her continued mistakes, her continued failure, reflect on your judgement. The commentators saying it has been a poor start will be compounded and amplified if you do not act here today.
When I close the debate I will probably move to some of what has motivated Joy Burch in the conflict of interest that surrounds the whole pokie fiasco, but the key issue is that this community and this Assembly can no longer have confidence in Joy Burch, and the evidence is clear.
MS BURCH (Brindabella—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Disability, Minister for Racing and Gaming and Minister for the Arts) (11.38): Here we are again at the beginning of the year. We have heard the new Chief Minister and the new member of this Assembly stand and talk about their vision for our community. They will stand and support the people in our community, across our suburbs, of all ages, of all backgrounds and with all requirements for help.
But what have we got from the Canberra Liberals? Complaint, complaint and complaint. There is no vision. Mr Hanson and the Canberra Liberals started last year with no vision and delivered no vision. They have come into this place again with no vision. He is, indeed, the ACT Dr No. He is the great complainer here in this place.
He touched on a few things. He admitted himself that he went back to Hansard at this time last year and he rehashed many of the same old arguments. I have his media release in front of me here. It has a number of dot points that are described as blunders. Many of them have been well and truly gone over. They are unsubstantiated and they have been argued, discussed and debated in this place in past times.
The irony is that they fail to accept that. Whilst they might put blame on to me and mismanagement on to me, the flip side of the coin is to be a minister for education responsible for an education system that is the envy of the country. It should also, then, be completely and absolutely mine to own as well.
But let me go to a few things: first, the poker machine, the electronic gaming machine note acceptor that Mr Hanson took great delight in and made great comment about. But he still has not articulated what his view is. Does he support our local community clubs? Does he support change to a note acceptor? Does he support the intent of that regulation, that policy, that I was trying to deliver that was to have an input limit on what amount of money went into the machines?
Indeed, the Chief Minister has made it clear—this is my understanding and I am sure he will stand and say this—that he did not like this regulation because it was out of step with the following regulation that would have put in place an input limit on gaming machines. At the moment, yes, machines will only accept a top total value of $20. But you can put any number of $20 notes into a machine. There is no limit.
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