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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1887 ..
MR SPEAKER
: Order! Mr Hargreaves, direct your comments through the chair.MR HARGREAVES
: Do you know why the shadow ministers opposite are called such, Mr Speaker? It is because we did not see them there; they were in the shadows. We saw them but rarely and fleetingly. That is quite obvious from a quick trip through the Hansard. A quick trip will reveal that.Mr Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that 400 or so questions were taken on notice, almost twice as many as for any other estimates committee, as I understand it. My advice from the secretary is that there were almost twice as many. The majority of them had nothing to do with the financial aspects of this budget. They were all about fishing trips and were an excuse for not being there to ask the questions in person. I suspect that that was due to either rank laziness or gutlessness; you can take your pick on which one.
They are called shadows, Mr Speaker, because they backed off the real thing and were too gutless to come down and do it themselves. I am absolutely gobsmacked at the amount of inefficiency and ineptitude that they can put together in one thing. I did not realise that six people could stack up inefficiency, incompetence and ineptitude to that height; I am gobsmacked.
Another thing I rejected was the focus on the health portfolio. The shadow ministers made a very big mistake in assuming that their leader had command across the portfolios. What a mistake that was! You can see that, because there was a cursory look at all the other ones and a big hit on Mr Smyth's shadow portfolio. Talk about political bias being introduced into the Assembly process! What a load of old cobblers, absolute old cobblers!
Mr Speaker, with respect to the recommendations on the privileges issue, I think that they are hypocritical to the nth degree and I propose to show them the contempt that they are due.
Mrs Cross
: I thought you were going to support them?MR HARGREAVES
: Not a prayer. Mr Speaker, I am not going to support them. As I have said, Mr Speaker, you can see how much homework was not done by the lot over there. But I have to say, in fairness, that the majority of that report was a consensus issue. I pay compliment to members from all quarters for the bit of give here and take there in the process. I think that it was done quite well. I thought that the atmosphere in the committee meetings was very constructive. It was entertaining in parts.Mr Smyth
: Notwithstanding the four bottles of whisky.MR HARGREAVES
: Notwithstanding the point that Mr Smyth makes. The reason there is not a dissenting report is that our views have been incorporated into the report. I think that that is the best way to do it. I would encourage the other members of this place to go down that track, rather than putting in dissenting reports, if possible.
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