Page 1318 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 23 March 2010
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MR RATTENBURY: Yes. I know cooperation is a hard concept for the Liberal Party to come to terms with. I know they prefer to call—
Mr Coe interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Coe!
MR RATTENBURY: It is very interesting that in this place those opposite almost never refer to themselves as the Liberal Party; they refer to themselves as the opposition, and that is because that is how they think. It is all about opposition. You are the only one, Mrs Dunne, who ever refers to the Liberal Party, if I recall correctly, and I think it indicates the mindset of those opposite—because they are an opposition; it is all about the opposition.
One of the things that the Liberal Party spent some time in the last week or so, since they got out of bed the wrong side, going on about in this chamber was poking fun at the Greens about the tag we used of “third-party insurance” during the last election campaign. There were all sorts of comments.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR RATTENBURY: Here come the objections across the chamber.
This is another one of those funny ironies that you learn when you come in here. We thought we would have to be third-party insurance against the government. What we did not realise was that we were going to have to be third-party insurance against the crazy opposition hell-bent on coming in here and doing nothing but making political statements; coming in here and doing nothing but putting up cheap motions full of political language that do nothing—do nothing to further good policy in the ACT.
It is all good and well to come in here and talk about accountability, but accountability is not just about political point scoring. It is not about calling names across the chamber. It is not about shouting down people that are trying to speak. It is not about shouting down ministers when they are trying to answer questions in question time. Accountability is about a range of things. Accountability is about contributing to policy development processes. It is about providing a critique of the government’s draft energy policy. That takes some hard work. It takes some time. Accountability is about a whole lot more things than simply coming into this chamber, calling everybody else in the chamber all sorts of names under the sun and saying, “We are holding the government to account.”
Accountability takes many forms. It takes hard work. It takes engagement in policy, because ultimately what drives the outcomes in this town. It is about getting the policy settings right, about getting government to spend money on the things that matter. That is what the Greens are here to do. That is why we are in this chamber and that is why people are voting for the Greens in record numbers all around the country.
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