Page 878 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Stanhope got up and named the individual officers. But apparently it is we who have been attacking individuals! What a joke! I was interested in hearing Mr Stanhope’s tirade when, in the same breath as he called the Liberal opposition “political geniuses”, he referred to Todd Woodbridge as “Ted Woodbridge”. We are the political geniuses—but it was “Ted Woodbridge”. I think it was a little bit like one of those “rugby league” players that he referred to the other day, those famous rugby league players! Oh, my goodness!
As we saw both yesterday and today in question time, instead of addressing the issue on its merits when he is pushed on the specifics he does not know; he turns around to his public servants. Again today he was sort of blaming the public servants: “Why haven’t I been briefed?” And why haven’t you been briefed? You have had a couple of months. Have you asked for a briefing on the specifics?
Mr Smyth: Katy Gallagher was. Katy Gallagher knew.
MR SESELJA: Yes, Katy Gallagher did know, but the Chief Minister did not, and so what has been his response? It was that we are attacking public servants by asking legitimate questions. What a load of rubbish!
Let us go through the record of this government on openness and accountability—and the list is mounting. On school closures, Mrs Dunne has mentioned already the conclusive certificates that have been issued. Openness and accountability on school closures? What mention was there before the last election about the closure of schools? None. In fact, when Labor were asked whether they were going to close schools, the education minister’s spokesperson assured us that there would be none. They assured us there would be no school closures. What kind of openness is that? You go to an election, you deny something is going to happen, and then you turn around 18 months later with a massive program of school closures that, going into the election, you denied. You went to the people of the ACT on a false premise. What kind of openness is that?
We saw the secret estimates hearings—the first time in the history of self-government that we have seen secret estimates hearings—this year. We have got the functional review, which remains secret. Apparently, we can see a comprehensive review of government, on which has been spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers’ money. Yet the public apparently do not have a right to know. We saw the attempt to shut down the coronial inquiry and, of course, the stacking of the estimates committee so that they could get the kind of outcomes that we saw when they went to the secret estimates hearings, which was, “When there are difficult questions to be answered, we shut it down. We don’t answer. We don’t allow the opposition to pry.”
What we have seen is a continuation of that today from the Chief Minister. Instead of addressing the issues on their merits, instead of actually getting down to the detail of the questions that have been asked, he claims we are somehow simply attacking public servants. We are doing no such thing. We have not even named the individuals involved. Mr Stanhope has been the only one naming public servants. We have not. We are going after the principal and seeking accountability from this government.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .