Page 624 - Week 02 - Thursday, 22 February 2018
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I would welcome Mr Coe providing that evidence to my office, if that is the case, and I will reassess my previous statements.
It is very clear, and I do not think anyone in the community is under any illusion, that the Canberra Liberals were opposed to light rail. They made that very clear, and that was, indeed, their will. In saying yesterday that I did not recall them mentioning it, I could not. I have been reminded of two questions. Again, if Mr Coe would like to provide further information to me, I will assess that and report back to the Assembly.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (3.47): I seek leave to make a personal explanation under standing order 46, please.
MADAM SPEAKER: I think leave is granted for that statement.
MR COE: Thank you. I think it is important that I respond to what was a pretty unbecoming speech by Ms Fitzharris. She said that we did not raise it in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016—“not once” was the quote, “not once”. She was not talking about the Assembly and she was not talking about the committee; she said that not once was it raised. Then she said that we did raise it. And we raised it on several occasions. One is:
Which begs the question, for people who work in Mitchell, how will they access the light rail? Whereabouts and what stop is proposed?
I went on:
Is there a reason there is not another stop like there was originally planned to be in Mitchell to service all the workers?
I went on:
But given Mitchell is a major employment hub, why is there not a stop at Lysaght Street as was the original plan?
On numerous occasions we asked the obvious question: why would you have thousands of people working on the route and not have a stop there? It is crazy, absolutely crazy.
Ms Fitzharris realised last night that actually she was wrong and then came in here and ranted on. If she had said, “You know what? I made a mistake. There were a few references,” and then sat down, that would have been the dignified thing to do. Instead, she comes in here and speaks for five minutes about how, in effect, we did do it but we did not do it. It is pretty unbecoming, and it goes to the amateur way that she runs her office. It takes weeks and weeks to get responses. They do not do Google searches before she makes claims like that. It demonstrates that she is not fit to be Chief Minister when Andrew Barr finally calls it a day.
MRS KIKKERT (Ginninderra) (3.49): Madam Speaker, I seek leave to make a personal statement.
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