Page 3319 - Week 10 - Thursday, 19 October 2006
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sorry. Then 2005-06: no, it was not. Then in 2006-07 it is still not the front-line communication system. That is why this minister needs to be censured for his failures. We then went on to the CFUs: not in place yet. We have looked at Fairnbairn.
Mr Stanhope: How many did you have?
MR SMYTH: The Chief Minister asks how many we had. We administered it properly. We did not lose a single house when we were in office. How many houses have gone since you have been in office? You had your wake-up call in December 2001. What did you do? A report with 109 recommendations, very few of which were implemented. Very few of the 109 recommendations delivered to your government were effectively implemented, exposing the ACT in 2003. That is what you did. When we were on duty, we replaced things. We had a vehicle replacement strategy.
Mr Stanhope: No hazard reduction burns; no communications; no headquarters. “We replaced 28 vehicles.”
MR SMYTH: According to your government’s chart, not my chart. That is why you do not want it tabled—because your chart tells the truth. These are vehicles which were manufactured in the period we were in government. They came on line and were available. Half the fleet was replaced, at an average of four vehicles a year, as opposed to your two vehicles a year since the 2003 bushfires. That is failure; that is negligence. That is why this minister should be censured.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, and Minister for the Arts) (3.40): This is a most appalling stunt, as everybody in this place knows and as we know from the two shockingly incompetent presentations we have been faced with over the last half hour from the shadow minister and from the immediately past deposed leader of the opposition.
It is interesting to hear the Liberal Party pontificating about a replacement policy. We know that is something they do well, particularly as it is expressed in the terms of incompetent leaders. It is interesting to hear Mr Smyth talking about replacements and replacement policies, something which his colleagues have grasped with alacrity in the last few months, to send him back after his apparent statutory date had been received. From the presentation we have just experienced, we know why they did that. He is a joke. He is an embarrassment. His presentation was absolutely pathetic.
Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I wish to raise a point of order—relevance. It is reasonable for the Chief Minister to go on and posture for a little while, but he has not made a substantive point in relation to the censure motion.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope was directing his attention to the motion moved by Mr Smyth. It would not be the first time that a motion moved by somebody in this place has been criticised by an opponent in the debate. I think that is quite routine.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Of course, it is ironic to see Mrs Dunne defending Mr Smyth. It was, after all, Mrs Dunne who led the charge to ensure that he be relegated to the back bench where they had hoped, of course, as a party, that he could do
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