Page 4411 - Week 10 - Thursday, 23 September 2010
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Mr Hargreaves: On the point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Hanson asked me what it was about his speech that I did not like—
Mr Seselja: Could we stop the clock, Madam Deputy Speaker? We stopped it for John.
Mr Hargreaves: And I said it was the lack of truth. The lack of truth in his speech is what I referred to. However, if Mr Hanson—
Mr Seselja: Do we only stop the clock on one side now?
Mr Smyth: Are you going to stop the clock or not?
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stop the clock, please.
MR HARGREAVES: Madam Deputy Speaker, I will only take a second or two. If Mr Hanson is upset and offended by that then I withdraw.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.
MR HANSON: Madam Deputy Speaker, thank you. Perhaps it was this quote:
Good government accepts criticism. Good government has the courage to allow itself to be closely scrutinised. It conducts its operations in an open, honest and accountable manner, not in secret.
If I were sitting on those benches opposite, having seen this very shabby Calvary deal concocted behind closed doors, hidden from the electorate before the last election, having heard the government and the minister, in particular, say, “All our deals were on the table,” and then having this exposure through leak after leak in the Canberra Times, I would be pretty humiliated too.
I could go on and read these quotes again, but I note that Mr Hargreaves has now scurried from the chamber. It is quite evident that my hammering away on this issue since it was first exposed in April of last year both in the media and this chamber has got us to a point now where we are going to have, hopefully, some scrutiny of this proposal that, up until this point, the government and, I would have to sadly say, the Greens have refused.
They might be upset about the speech that I have given. I have used some of those Stanhope quotes repeatedly because I think they do warrant repetition. They expose the rank hypocrisy of this government’s position when it comes to their positioning on Calvary. On the one hand the rhetoric is about openness and light and open government, whereas, on the other hand, what we have seen from this government is a refusal to be scrutinised and doing all their dealings behind closed doors.
Mr Hargreaves seemed to want a debate on some statistics on our health system. He might like a separate debate on our appalling rates of elective surgery. He might want
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