Page 223 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2010
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MR COE: It is recent. It is interesting. I reckon I have got what must be pretty close to a full sample of every candidate’s stuff, including that of the Deputy Speaker, Ms Porter. It is interesting. Not much appears in our literature about childcare—not much at all: that is very interesting, but that is all right, that is okay, because that is made up for by some of the other candidates—with the exception, perhaps, of Chris Bourke.
Chris Bourke was the dentist who ran his campaign a little on the quiet side but still did put out a few bits of literature. Unfortunately, there was nothing there about childcare. However, perhaps in his favour, the old childcare might get a good run in preselection documents there and he might be able to sway some of the delegates, perhaps the national executive, when they choose a candidate here in Fraser.
Mr Stanhope, too, did not mention any childcare bits and pieces in his literature—mainly because there was no literature from Mr Stanhope. He was not exactly the most popular man in October 2008. Quite frankly, when your vote goes from 22,000 down to 13,000, you have got to ask a question, don’t you? You have got to ask the question, “Do people want to see my face in their mailbox?” The answer usually is a big no.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Coe, can you stick to the subject of the amendment to the motion.
MR COE: I am very much on this, because it is all about local issues and it is all about local solutions.
Ms Burch knows the issue; she even sympathises. That is great; that is wonderful. But what would be better would be for her to use her ministerial powers and actually solve this problem. I do not think it would take too much time and it would not take too much thinking. She has the power to solve it, yet she cannot or she will not. If she was here, perhaps she would be able to respond, but of course she is not.
Let me go back to the literature, the 2008 election campaign literature. Adina Cirson put out a lovely flyer. It was a bit branded by the Labor Party; I hope the discretionary office allowance did not pay for this, because it is actually from Wayne Berry. Wayne Berry has a co-branded piece here with Adina Cirson. One of the things that she is particularly interested in is high-quality, accessible and affordable childcare. Is that not exactly what Gumnut is providing? That is exactly what it is—exactly. Here we have the Labor Party, which Adina and Wayne are very much a part of, saying no.
When Mr Stanhope goes in six or seven months time as everyone expects, and perhaps Adina comes into this place on the count back, I wonder whether she will be waving this around like Neville Chamberlain did in 1939, saying, “This is it.”
Mrs Dunne: Quality childcare in our time.
MR COE: That is right: quality childcare in our time—and affordable. Maybe not. Maybe not, if Gumnut does not quite get to last beyond the two or three months if she is in the Assembly after September.
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