Page 2122 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 August 2006
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the Assembly on 18 November 2003. I remind members that it was downgraded to one of grave concern and the motion was passed. This minister has a track record. Back in August 2003 there was a failure by the minister to respect the resolution of the Assembly on the Nettlefold Street trees. On 23 September 2003 there was a successful censure motion of the minister.
Mr Corbell: On a point of order: I did not ignore that motion and it is misleading to claim that I did.
MR SPEAKER: You accuse the member of misleading the Assembly. That is not a point of order, Mr Corbell. You may raise it as a personal explanation in due course.
MR PRATT: I find that particularly rich, given that the Chief Minister is today misleading the community through the media on views supposedly held by me and others on capital punishment. Where is your demonstration mark? Where is the benchmark of ministerial code of behaviour? It does not lie with the Chief Minister, does it? Is that where you get your demonstration of behaviour from?
Government members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Pratt, direct your comments through the chair. Members of the government will cease interjecting.
MR PRATT: Their hypocrisy runs rampant. Unfortunately, what we see is a pattern of fairly systemic actions which show that the minister and his colleagues do not give due regard to this Assembly. This motion today simply underlines our grave concern. I support this motion put forward by our leader. The opposition is deeply concerned with the conduct of two ministers who have not exercised cabinet solidarity.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Minister for Health, Minister for Disability and Community Services and Minister for Women) (12.10): As has been flagged by previous speakers on this side, the government will not be supporting this motion, essentially because the motion is wrong and the government cannot support a motion that is wrong. It is wrong on a number of grounds. None of the opposition speakers has shown any understanding of the discussion at the ALP conference. I did not vote against a government decision on school closures. I did not vote against a government decision about changing superannuation arrangements. If the opposition is going to bring a motion of such seriousness to the Assembly, it really needs to do its homework to make sure that the motion it is bringing before the Assembly is correct in the facts it is presenting. It is not. It is wrong on both counts. I was not present at the motion on superannuation either. So that addresses the same points that Mr Corbell has made.
In relation to general resolution No 6, as it is now famously known, which ultimately was voted down by the party, the words in the motion recognise that rationalisation of schools plays an important role in ensuring quality educational outcomes. It was a resolution in support of school closures in line with the government’s decisions. So the opposition got a whiff of disunity in the government, and that is wrong. Members opposite got ahead of themselves. They are so excited at the thought that for once the disunity might not be about them. It might not be about the past 2½ years of their doing themselves in publicly—and very nastily, I should say. They got a whiff, they got excited
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