Page 3977 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
to us to go and fix it. What did we do? We embarked on a rejuvenation program. Mrs Burke stood up in this place and congratulated the government on those initiatives. Now she interjects—snippety, snippety, snipe. The queen of cliches has the gall to have a go at me for something that she congratulated me on earlier this year. I find that absolutely staggering.
What these guys do is trawl back. This is a typical Mr Smyth dirt campaign. The Mr Smyth dirt campaign had its genesis back in 1995 when he was running to keep the job as the member for Canberra. The process that we are seeing played out by Mr Pratt today is typical of the process. It was supposed to not be a dirt campaign; it was supposed to be done on policy. What happened? What did we see? We saw red and black pamphlets coming out and telling all the dirt on the candidate challenging Mr Smyth. Do you know what happened, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? He got treated in exactly the same way John Howard did. The people of Canberra took one look at the red and black posters and said, “You’re on your bike, son.” He was the only person in the 1996 campaign—the only sitting Liberal—
Mr Smyth: No; it’s not true.
MR HARGREAVES: It is true. He was the only sitting Liberal across Australia to lose his seat. You have to ask yourself whether these sorts of dirt campaigns work or not. The answer is clearly no. He got treated in the same way John Howard got treated. If Mr Pratt does not watch his step and does not stop listening to Mr Smyth, the voters of Brindabella will deal with him in the same way that the voters of Canberra dealt with Mr Smyth in 1996.
I challenge Mr Pratt to come up with a list of his achievements since coming to this place. I have a funny feeling that you could write it on the back of a postage stamp with a textacolour. That is what you could do. He has not got any: he has not contributed to debate; he has not read his material. He comes along to estimates and annual reports and he is belligerent. He talks to me about it. He talks to me about some of this stuff. Have a good look at the Hansard, Mr Pratt, and have a look at your own performance in this place before you start chucking stunts.
Those opposite struggle around looking for one or two. It ain’t going to work. Mr Pratt has got be one of the laziest shadows that I have come across here in nearly 10 years. I say that because when we go down there for the estimates hearing, PAC or annual reports he has got only two subjects on his mind. You have got an appropriation bill that has got $20 million worth of stuff in there for buses; it has got millions of dollars out there for housing. And what does he talk about? His two favourite subjects: graffiti on private property and security at the interchanges. I explained at the time that we have got the security cameras on the buses. I told him where they were on the actual bus. I told him about the global, city-wide CCTV program. “Not good enough,” he says, “John Hargreaves should have fixed this ages ago.” I respect the institution of this house. I have taken this motion particularly seriously, but I have trouble doing the same for Mr Pratt. (Time expired.)
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (4.05): I am very glad to hear that the minister is taking the matter seriously—and so he should, because Mr Pratt has listed a litany of failures. It is a failure on the part of this particular
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .