Page 1188 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 29 March 2017
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and humiliation if the commonwealth parliament passes the proposed 18C amendments. Of course, we hope this will not be necessary.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (10.29): It is another Wednesday and, therefore, another federal motion from the Labor Party. Labor comes to this place every sitting week it seems with another motion on an issue outside the control of the ACT government and outside the control of the ACT Assembly whilst ignoring so many problems which are facing Canberrans.
The proof of this is simple and stark. The next motion today, to be moved by a Liberal member, is about the growing problem of serious dog attacks across this city, which affects hundreds of Canberrans. We have a motion today about integrity in the ACT government agency responsible for land development, a motion about public housing, and we also have a motion about Indigenous people and making sure they are respected, as are the veteran community.
It is one thing for those opposite to preach, but it is another thing to actually govern. If Labor really cared about Canberra and Canberrans, they would be offering solutions to this issue. Instead of a motion which “calls on” action for something which is pretty much a commonwealth issue, perhaps we would have a motion about how we improve English as a second language in our school system, especially the non-government system and particularly the Catholic sector, which is really struggling with regard to kids who do not have a proficient understanding of English.
Perhaps we would also have a “calls on” motion which talks about transport disadvantage for migrants who do not live near public transport corridors and who cannot afford cars. How do we address that? That would be a very important “calls on” motion. Perhaps we could look at what options we could provide for linguistically diverse health services in the ACT and how they can be expanded and improved upon, because we know that language is a very serious barrier when it comes to providing health services.
How can we support ethnic clubs in Canberra that are all struggling at the moment? So many ethnic clubs have closed down as a result of an ongoing burden in the regulatory space of the ACT government. These are all practical things that affect our migrant community but, alas, those opposite are more interested in being the federal opposition than being the ACT government.
One need only review the diversity of members in the opposition to gain an understanding about our belief in diversity and how we celebrate multiculturalism. Be it Italian, Samoan, Hungarian or Korean, we celebrate people of different heritage, and we are all very grateful for the contribution these members and, indeed, the entire migrant community make to Canberra.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for Regulatory Services, Minister for the Arts and Community Events and Minister for Veterans and Seniors) (10.32): Madam Speaker, I am most pleased to rise and speak in support of this motion, both as the minister for vets and seniors and the Attorney-General. I thank
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