Page 666 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 9 March 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
been anywhere near basic core service delivery: the $26 million extra in this past year’s budget for the arboretum, the $5 million that this government wasted on a busway that it never delivered, the $5 million that it wasted on a communications facility that was never delivered. We found out just recently about the $400,000 it spent on a process for a solar farm that it did not pursue. We see the waste everywhere.
Canberrans get frustrated. They raise the issue of the millions of dollars of artwork on the side of the road. They see that. They see the government spending $100,000 for artwork in the prison. But the government cannot mow their lawns. Then we have the Chief Minister saying, “It has been a really wet summer.” It has been a really wet summer.
Before that we had about eight summers that were not that wet. We had years of drought. So if the excuse is “we cannot keep up, we cannot be expected to keep up when it is wet and it is a lot of money and we cannot keep up with it” surely there should have been a massive windfall during the drought. By that logic, the government was getting a massive windfall every year from not having to do as much mowing as it ordinarily would due to the drought. Did we see savings in those budgets? We saw TAMS consistently blowing its budget.
Because the Stanhope government has not managed its finances, because it has spent money in areas that are not very important, it now says, “We cannot be expected to deliver when it rains. It is all right when it is dry; it is all right in drought. We are okay. We still blow the budget but at least we do not have to fork out all that money for mowing.” And now it rains and we should not expect service.
The people of Canberra deserve better. The people of the ACT pay a lot for this service. Mr Coe’s motion rightly points out that they are not getting what they paid for. Why are they not getting what they paid for? Because this government and this Chief Minister are obsessed with his own issues, with pursuing his own pet agenda items, rather than doing what people expect.
There are very few things that we get more feedback on than these basic issues. Just recently I went to the Lanyon shops and, within 15 minutes of being there, three separate people had approached me about this very issue, about lawn mowing in their area. And of course, to Mr Stanhope, it is not important enough. It is not worth debating. And if you bother to debate it, you are talking down the town. Those people—
Mr Stanhope: Why didn’t you write to me about them? Why didn’t you write to me about those three representations?
MR SESELJA: I did.
Mr Stanhope: Three of them? Did you? Just be careful.
MR SESELJA: I did. I wrote to you. I wrote to you and I got a letter back.
Mr Stanhope: On all three of them?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video