Page 623 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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MADAM SPEAKER: Ms Fitzharris.
MS FITZHARRIS: I rise today to respond to allegations made yesterday by Mr Coe in relation to falsely accusing him and/or the opposition of not raising the issue of the Mitchell light rail stop. Mr Coe urged me to correct the record and apologise for these assertions, and to undertake a Google search.
Madam Speaker, I do not believe I have anything to apologise for. I can assure Mr Coe that I have done a simple Google search and I am happy to update the Assembly with the results. On a simple Google search of “Alistair Coe light rail Mitchell stop”, I found 67,200 hits. On a simple Google search of “Canberra Liberals light rail Mitchell stop”, I found 254,000 hits. That is a total of 321,200 hits. However, there was no specific mention of the Canberra Liberals advocating for these stops, except for two references in Hansard.
What I did find specifically was that on two occasions during committee hearings before the last election—it turned out I was present, Madam Speaker, but I did not recall these two specific questions—Mr Coe did ask about Mitchell light rail stops. I have re-read these two transcripts and I can confirm that Mr Coe on two occasions asked two or three questions about a Mitchell light rail stop. Asking two questions out of a total of 321,200 searches on the Mitchell stops means that he mentioned the Mitchell light rail stop about 0.00000623 per cent of the time.
He also claimed that I misrepresented the position of those opposite by saying that they were nowhere requesting a Mitchell light rail stop in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. I have done these searches—indeed, a number of people have—but I cannot find anything other than the two particular Hansard references. If I am mistaken, I would welcome Mr Coe providing that to my office and I will further assess my previous statements. There has been no press release and no public comment in multiple public forums where I can provide clear evidence of the Canberra Liberals requesting a light rail stop in Mitchell.
I did a simple Google search of “Canberra Liberals stop light rail”. Madam Speaker, as you would expect, we came up with hundreds of thousands of hits on that. In fact, the first one to come up was in a Canberra Liberals press release dated 17 May 2016, where it says, in capital letters, no less:
CANBERRA LIBERALS WILL STOP LIGHT RAIL.
Interestingly, in that, there is no mention of a Mitchell stop, but it is very clear:
The Canberra Liberals will stop light rail if elected in October … We have made our intentions clear and people can vote accordingly.
Madam Speaker, it is very clear that they did that.
I apologise if two questions that were raised in a committee were not referenced by me. I think I am on fairly safe ground to state that the Canberra Liberals did not actively advocate for a light rail stop in Mitchell prior to the 2016 election. Again,
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