Page 1422 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2016
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Today, a day when their colleagues will bring down a budget that confirms the gutting of education funding in this city, you would think they might finally have broken their deafening silence and had the courage to speak out, but no. Today, a day when their colleagues will bring down a budget confirming the gutting of health funding in this city, you would think they might finally have broken their deafening silence and had the courage to speak out. But, again, no.
Instead, they have decided yet again to insult the intelligence and memory of Canberrans. They have decided it is a good idea to come into this place and pretend that none of the ministerial disgraces of their time in government ever happened. They have decided that they can wash themselves clean of the stain of the grubbiest government in this country’s history since Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
They seem to think that like small children who think they can turn invisible by clapping their hands and spinning around, all the grown-ups will just play along with their games of pretend. They all think that we will forget the times that they breached the Financial Management Act, the overnight loans, that we will all pretend that they never fled the scene of accidents before police arrived or that they moved amendments on private members’ day that would benefit shareholdings owned in their own family.
Madam Speaker, the problem with behaving like that, like painting the grass green and assuming no-one would notice, is that it is not a funny game. It is not something that people forget. And they do not forget the history of the previous Liberal government in this place.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3.33): Madam Speaker, I would like to thank Mr Wall for bringing this matter of public importance before the Assembly today. Given the behaviour of this government, it is prudent to remind those opposite of their responsibilities under the ministerial code of conduct. The extraordinary speech that we all just heard from the Chief Minister goes directly to one of those points in the ministerial code of conduct about respect and not recklessly attacking the reputation of other people, even under parliamentary privilege, which he has just done.
Mr Rattenbury is laughing, because he thinks it is a big joke. He is laughing.
Mr Rattenbury: I am laughing at the hypocrisy, Mr Hanson, your absolute hypocrisy on this sort of topic.
MR HANSON: He is saying, “absolute hypocrisy”. I think that that may be counter to the—
MADAM SPEAKER: It is not; do not worry. Move on.
MR HANSON: It is not? It is typical of Mr Rattenbury, though, to sit there and snidely interject and giggle away. It is a shame that he does not take this issue more seriously. The impact of his conduct, his behaviour and his ministerial conduct on the people of the ACT is no laughing matter.
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