Page 3718 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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I have wondered where previous members of this place got their approach. It is from Mr Smyth. It is he. I thought he was just being a good politician and creating things that we have to do battle on. No, it goes deeper than that. These people, and particularly he, know the depths of hate like nobody else in the world. I do not know why. I struggle to understand it.
This man is the only minister ever to have been booted out when he was a minister. His whole government disappeared. He has the temerity to talk to Mr Barr, who, as it happens, was re-elected as a minister. Mr Barr took himself to the electorate as a minister and was re-elected. Mr Smyth took himself to the election and was rejected. His whole government was rejected. Was it rejected once? No. Was it rejected twice? No. It was rejected three times. His credibility has taken a nose dive.
Mr Smyth: I think you got elected fourth this time around.
MR HARGREAVES: I was re-elected as a minister as well. Hello! As a matter of fact, the percentage reduction in my vote was actually less than Mr Smyth’s. You can go away and count that one. By way of distraction, he will use his interjection to create another straw man and tear it down. This is just unreal.
Mr Hanson: This is just appalling. He has said he is struggling, and he is. You are struggling, John.
MR HARGREAVES: The issue that the Assembly has been asked to talk about—
Mr Hanson: One man here to defend Andrew Barr.
MR HARGREAVES: Madam Assistant Speaker, I ask you to warn Mr Hanson. He has been a constant interjector, and I heard him in silence. Now, on this serious issue, they are rabbiting on, and I ask you to call them in order. Otherwise we shall return sevenfold.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, please continue. The noise level is not higher than usual, whichever way you want to look at it.
MR HARGREAVES: Then I draw your attention to Mr Hanson’s bellowing. His voice is only a little bit more sonorous than Mr Pratt’s was.
Mr Doszpot: You will get the Stanhope award for content here, John.
MR HARGREAVES: We will talk about that a little later, Mr Doszpot. I do not think this issue is serious enough for this place to debate. If Mr Doszpot perceives some offence against him, he can use the standing orders to voice his grievance and have it put on the record. To ask the rest of us to adjudicate it because he has taken offence I think is not properly respecting the function of this place.
The big concern I have—and I am running out of time, Madam Assistant Speaker—with Ms Bresnan’s motion is this. I understand it to be a compromised position, and I
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