Page 1476 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010

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spread the word and encourage all schools in Canberra to promote the Litlinks competition to their students, as this wonderful initiative deserves for this competition to become a major event on the ACT education calendar.

South Australian and Tasmanian Greens

MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Convenor, ACT Greens) (9.22): I rise to congratulate the Tasmanian Greens and the South Australian Greens on the elections over the weekend. We know that in South Australia the Greens have gained another upper house seat, and the ACT Greens send their congratulation to Tammy Jennings.

Of course, in Tasmania it was a thrilling campaign and a tremendous result. One in five Tasmanians voted Green and now, of course, we are witnessing minority government happen in that state. It is an unusual thing for Tasmania. As we know, here in the ACT it is the norm, but in Tasmania it is a rare thing. We are very proud of the campaign that was run down there. I would like to send our congratulations to the Greens’ leader, Nick McKim in Franklin, Kim Booth in Bass; Cassy O’Connor in Denison and Tim Morris in Lyons. Also, we are very hopeful that Paul O’Halloran will get that fifth seat in Braddon.

Tasmania did vote for the Greens in very large numbers and chose to end majority government in that state. Nick McKim said:

What an opportunity this is for Tasmania, what an opportunity for a new era of constructive cooperative politics.

We can reflect upon these words here, particularly after the sorts of things that have been going down in the last couple of sitting weeks. There is a responsibility for politicians, in particular political leaders, to respect the will of voters and in good faith cooperate to deliver good outcomes for all the people of their jurisdictions.

As I said, we are thrilled by this result, and we will continue our efforts in the ACT Assembly to bring an open and cooperative approach to politics. I did speak to Nick McKim in the last couple of days to give my congratulations to him and to his team down there. It is still quite uncertain what sorts of arrangements might come into place, but we will watch that closely and with great interest.

The result was inspiring, despite the fear campaigns. Unfortunately, it seems to be a part of many political campaigns in this country—that last-minute smear tactic that is used. In this case I was surprised that it was the Labor government that chose to use a fear-and-smear approach. Here in the ACT, my experience of that was in the last federal election when it was actually the Liberals with Gary Humphries who decided to go down that path. The Greens’ campaign was a very positive campaign. It spoke about the future of Tasmania, and I believe that that is what people, the voters, responded to.

I will finish with one of Nick’s quotes that I found inspiring. I spent some of Saturday night getting onto the various websites of the electoral commissions in Tasmania and South Australia following the vote. I was quite inspired when Nick was on the TV and


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