Page 2246 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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Mr Barr: I met with ACTSport last week.
MR SMYTH: Last week, there you go.
Mr Barr: I am meeting the AEU next week.
Mr Hanson: You are a little responsive to criticism in the media, aren’t you?
MR SMYTH: He seems to be very responsive to criticism.
Mr Barr: I met with the principals association last week as well.
MR SMYTH: He met with the principals last week as well. Isn’t that good?
Mr Barr: I meet with them four times a year and the P&C, yes.
MR SMYTH: Suddenly he went to meetings. It is raised in estimates and suddenly the minister responds.
Mr Hanson: Why won’t you meet with Noah’s Ark then?
Mr Barr: I am very disappointed. You all went very quiet after that, didn’t you?
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Barr and Mr Hanson!
MR SMYTH: Quite clearly, the minister is embarrassed into having meetings. Hopefully, today we will embarrass the minister into having more. The problem here is that the minister is not doing his job. Yesterday we had Mr Hargreaves say that three members of the committee of estimates were actually parliamentarians because they were doing the job and were politicians.
Mr Hanson: Show me the tender.
Mr Barr: Certainly the intention to tender is there, yes.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson and Mr Barr, will you stop having a conversation across the chamber, please.
MR SMYTH: But my response to that is that we are elected to serve the needs of the people of the ACT. And the problem for the people whose kids are looked after, whose children are looked after either at the Shepherd Centre or Noah’s Ark, is that they are being ignored by this government. They have been abandoned by this government. I think the minister needs to take the motion seriously. I think the minister needs to meet very quickly with these two groups in particular and report back before we start the budget debate next week as to the outcome and what arrangements he will put in place to ameliorate this impact.
We have already had Ms Burch discredited. She got up here and said Mr Doszpot’s motion is wrong; yet she has provided a written answer. And one can only assume
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