Page 2166 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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while Casey has continued to develop. This motion is designed to hasten the process of land return to the Casey community and identify the right community facilities for the land. This is our job as a government.
As a result of my motion, I have already had a lot of fruitful discussions with my colleagues and, broadly speaking, I think most people in this place think it is time to get on with the job in Casey. I am confident that we will get the right result and that we can look forward to the government commencing consultation on these blocks as soon as possible and, hopefully, delivering these community facilities as soon as possible too. I call on all members of this place to support this motion and support the community of Casey.
MR MILLIGAN (Yerrabi) (5.25): I am pleased today to be speaking about the importance of sport and recreation. As the shadow minister, I believe it is my responsibility to advocate for the community to have the best possible assets and sporting infrastructure that is well placed and well maintained.
I also feel obliged, as a member for Yerrabi, to fight for the needs of my electorate—needs which, as with most of Canberra, are not being met by this government. This is despite the high level of tax and revenue they receive and the very poor return on investment most residents of the ACT feel they get back. It is with this in mind that I rise to speak today as the shadow minister for sport and rec and the local member for Yerrabi.
That brings me to Mr Pettersson, a fellow member for Yerrabi, who has been missing in action for the last 1,329 days. Since the ACT election Mr Pettersson has been AWOL. We have heard about his ambition to legalise cannabis, we have heard about his support for pill testing and we know he enjoys video games. But that is about it. Yet, for some reason, 500 days out from the next election, Mr Pettersson has decided to show up and is making some outrageous claims about his performance.
Just last week he tried to claim that after his advocacy for Palmerston shops they were the lucky recipient of funding in the budget for more car parking. This is just not true. The campaign is being led by residents and shop owners, and it has been supported by the Canberra Liberals—by Alistair Coe and me as Liberal members for Yerrabi. Two years ago we worked with parents at the primary school to start a petition. We letterboxed, we doorknocked and we wrote to the government. We managed to get an overflow car park constructed at the school—and that was a good start—but we maintained the rage and worked with local businesses to make representation.
On 4 April this year we invited some of those businesses into this chamber for question time, when we asked why the government would not commit to building this parking area. Mr Pettersson and Ms Orr sat in this chamber with blank faces. In fact, I have it on good authority that the day before Mr Pettersson’s media release on this issue he made his first visit to Palmerston shops. During his chat, he revealed that he had not heard anything about it, seen plans or potential costings. This just proves that the Labor backbench is not tuned into the Yerrabi community, and we are now seeing this again in this motion.
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