Page 2171 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
But of concern was his impugnment of Mr Pratt’s character. It was then Mrs Burke and Dr Foskey. It ran on for a while. We have had a debate here; I will not reflect on that. It is indicative of the behaviour of some people in this executive and a behaviour you really need to curtail—in your own interests as much as anyone else’s.
There are some other issues too such as whether Mr Barr said something about ACTAS. That is worth looking at. It is certainly worth clarifying. I ask him to do that. A number of ministers have shown a certain degree of arrogance, to put it mildly, in this process.
In conclusion, the conduct of the executive during the hearing shows that the government does not even pay lip-service any more to accountability. It is showing some contempt for the parliamentary process. I hope that at next year’s estimates we see a better change of attitude by the executive. That behaviour does not help anyone.
It is certainly not fair to the community groups, who—whether you like them or not; whether you agree with them or not—have a legitimate role to play in our community and have a legitimate reason to put their point of view. Even if you do not like it, you can engage in robust debate. But you cross the line when you mindlessly abuse them—whatever the group, whatever you think of them. That behaviour needs to be modified.
In terms of the sum, there were some questions in relation to a couple of extra staff in the executive. I do not have any particular issue with that. That is fundamentally a fairly modest sum we are talking about.
I am more concerned with the attitude when answering questions, not answering questions and specifically dealing with outside people. We can all have a go at each other here. We can all say horrible things about each other. That is fine. That is part and parcel of the process. Sometimes some people go overboard, go too far. But at the end of the day we are all big people. But when dealing with outside groups I urge a lot more caution than we have seen, particularly during this process.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12.19): I observe that the Leader of the Opposition, when speaking on this line item of the budget, the ACT executive, worth just under $4.5 billion, spent exactly 20 seconds of his 20 minutes talking about the application of the budget; about the budget makeup—20 seconds out of 20 minutes. That is pretty close to a record for a leader of the opposition.
Mr Stanhope: The only one he mentioned was to abolish Gary Humphries’s per cent for art scheme.
MR HARGREAVES: That is right. I need to address a couple of the things that Mr Mulcahy has said, just to clear the record. He criticised me for not responding to questions on notice about Albert Hall. He said there were about 20 questions, 16 of which did not get answered properly. He accused me of not answering because something was commercial-in-confidence.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .