Page 3203 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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effect, “We would not have done that but we might have done something else.” We have not had a positive suggestion from those opposite since I have been listening to the debate on the budget. What we have seen is a diatribe.
When I look through their dissenting report I look for a positive contribution of some type. I have to tell you that the dissenting report did something that the estimates committee was not capable of doing—that is, make as many recommendations as possible to look into things. This is unheralded in the history of the Assembly. If you have a look at their dissenting report—its 100-and-something recommendations—you will see three-quarters of them are saying, “Please examine this, please review this; please do this.” But there are no concrete suggestions on what to do. There are no suggestions about doing something on the ground.
I will say this, though: there was one little pearl of wisdom in there. I looked at it and I thought, “No!” That was that the government actually pick up the Liberal Party’s policy on infrastructure. I thought that that has got to be a trick recommendation. That is to see whether we were reading them. I was and, again, I have to say that I did not see a whole heap of what they would do.
It is all well and good for Mr Hanson and Mrs Dunne to stand up here and criticise Ms Burch, as they do now. We see that Ms Gallagher is going to have a bit of a holiday now because they are now going to pick on Ms Burch. We saw that today. She got a yahtzee in question time today; all six questions. Yahtzee! The thing is that it is not doing anybody any good. It is not benefiting a soul.
Maybe their egos are getting a bit of a hit, but that is it. If they came up with a couple of solid suggestions, if they had some substance to them and if they were evidenced-based, maybe people would say, “That is not a bad idea.” I think it was you, Mr Speaker, who said that the executive benches do not have a mortgage on good ideas in this place. But let me tell you this: those people have not had a good idea in this place yet. If they have, they have not shared it with the rest of us.
Maybe that is my complaint. It is that if they had had a good idea they have not shared it with us. Certainly, you cannot waste the amount of time they have—an hour-and-a-half of debate—and not talk about the subject that we are supposed to be here to talk about. All that happened was invective and viciousness directed at Ms Burch. I am used to it because those people over there are short on substance and high on attack. They are high on personal attack. It goes off me like water off a duck’s back.
Mr Smyth: Apparently not.
Mr Seselja: It did not look like it today.
MR HARGREAVES: Yes, like water off a duck’s back. But I am not going to sit here and listen to that nonsensical diatribe against one of the members of the executive who is responsible for delivering these initiatives. Either put up or shut up.
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