Page 269 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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It seems to me that this place really does need a shake-up. It needs to concentrate on things that matter—things like infrastructure, things like education, things like healthcare. These are the things that the people of Canberra expect this place to talk about. And it is no wonder the gallery is completely empty. This Assembly does not matter to them because we do not concentrate on the things that matter. We should be concentrating on what I am talking about now, which is the need to get on with the job.
So I would urge the government to reconsider their attitude to this place and I would urge the Greens to do the same. I urge the Assembly to sit longer hours, to sit more weeks and to do the things that we are meant to do in this place.
Legislative Assembly—sittings
MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (6.24): In relation to that, I will, again, refer to the extra sitting hours, which I did refer to earlier in the Assembly. We have five extra hours per week, this is through the Greens agreement, I might add, on top of the current 18 hours per week, which is a 28 per cent increase in sitting time. Again, I note, if the opposition would like to look at these figures, an extra five hours per week over the 14 weeks of the sitting year is an extra 70 hours per year. This is equivalent to another 3.9 sitting weeks per year. So I think they need to look at that.
I will quickly make reference, which I am sure is appropriate, to the admin and procedure meeting. We did have a discussion, all three parties, about allowing for each party to have an item of business today, respecting the fact that we had three inaugural speeches. We all agreed to respect that. So it is disappointing that this was not, at the end of the day, respected.
I guess that, for us—and Meredith reflected on the last two days—when we do have meetings to come to an agreement and that is not respected is disappointing. I can assure you, we will be endeavouring to get through six items of business in the normal private members day, and I hope the other parties will, too.
Economy
Legislative Assembly—sittings
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children and Young People, Minister for Planning and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (6.25): I am prompted to rise in the adjournment debate this evening to respond to a couple of the claims that were just made by our new colleague Mr Coe on matters of economic management, particularly in response to his claims about the alleged fiscal prudence of the Liberal Party and their position and historical record on these matters in the Assembly. Although I probably recognise that, when the Liberal Party were last in government, Mr Coe would still have been at school, he might do well to recognise and go back and look at the budget positions that were arrived at by the Liberal Party during their time in government. I think it would be fair to observe that at not one point in their time in government did they ever achieve a budget surplus. This government has delivered a budget surplus in every year it has been in office.
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