Page 1136 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
and accountable government. A Stanhope government will not hide behind commercial-in-confidence documents. A Stanhope government will not hide behind cabinet-in-confidence documents.” Today he actually admitted the hypocrisy of his position when he said: “Look, we made these requests. We moved motions just like this and we lost them and, you know, what goes around comes around.” So Dr Foskey is right. When he was the Leader of the Opposition, Jon Stanhope was the height of moral rectitude in terms of openness and accountability, and he has thrown it all out. He has completely brought into tatters his own reputation. He has trampled it on the ground himself and he has trampled it into the mud. What he stands for is absolutely nothing.
It is really a bit embarrassing, I suppose, when people do not have the courage of their convictions—when they say things, because it sounds good at the time, but they never think about: will I be able to live up to this when the going gets really tough? And the going is getting tough.
Mr Hargreaves: And the tough are going.
MRS DUNNE: Yes, the tough got going. We had the code of good government speech from the Chief Minister on 14 March 2001:
But we will not compromise our integrity. We will lead when necessary and not trade off our position in secret deals.
ACT Labor will abandon the limited, restrictive draft Budget process adopted by the Liberals …
That is because “we don’t want to tell anybody about what is going on in our budget process”. It continued:
That is not to say ACT Labor will draft its Budget behind closed doors …
It is being drafted behind closed doors, and with everyone sworn to secrecy about the contents of this document—and every time something trickles out into the community we have a range of denials.
Mr Stanhope has stood in this place two days in a row and said the figures, which the opposition have been told and the media have been told came out of the briefings, are wrong. I have said it to him privately, and I will say it to him now: “Put yourself out of your misery, Chief Minister. Table the document and then we will know who is right; whether the community speaking to us are right or whether you are right. It will be over and done with; the misery will be out of the way. You will be able to come clean with the ACT community. You will be able to have a proper, open discussion about the future of the ACT community, about the fiscal future of this community, and you could do it in a way that is open and accountable.”
Mr Stanhope: What—an open and accountable budget?
MRS DUNNE: No, no, no. When you get to a budget that has been put together behind closed doors, which has secret little loopholes in, if you know where to read you will actually find the piece of information—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .