Page 1799 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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get to the tintacks of this issue. Is the Liberal’s objection that they think the building should be privately owned? Is that the issue? Besides your objection per se to the government office block, it is just the method of construction, is it? Is your concern about the method of construction, the ownership? The Liberals are frustrated financially because they do not stand for anything. It is just opposition for opposition’s sake.
Mrs Dunne: On a point of order.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Stop the clock. Mrs Dunne has a point of order.
Mrs Dunne: I have two points of order.
MR SPEAKER: We will take one at a time.
Mrs Dunne: I ask you to draw the Chief Minister’s attention to the provisions of standing order 42. He should address you. He should not turn his back to you. Secondly, the standing orders in relation to the question require that he answer the question directly and be directly relevant to the question, which was about the proportion of ownership of commonwealth offices.
MR SPEAKER: Both points of order from Mrs Dunne are upheld. Chief Minister, do you wish to add anything further?
MR STANHOPE: On the point of order, Mr Speaker, I am not responsible for the commonwealth’s office accommodation policies. I suggest that the question is out of order.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Doszpot?
MR DOSZPOT: Chief Minister, if you and your government cannot maintain and refurbish office blocks that the government currently owns, how can the community have confidence that you can maintain a $430 million office block?
MR STANHOPE: Goodness me! So, Mr Doszpot, nothing ever changes. You actually maintain an asset forever. You never look to renew; you never look to rebuild. Is that the Liberal Party’s position in relation to infrastructure—that you have a building, you have a piece of infrastructure, you never change it, you never move, you never look to do something better? Do you never accept that maybe an option that is faced by building owners is to actually start again, that they will rebuild, that they will actually look at a property portfolio and decide from time to time that they might wish to sell some of it, that there is advantage actually in disposing of a property and building elsewhere, and that you do not do your cost-benefit?
Goodness me! Is this the extent and the maturity of the Liberal Party’s thinking or understanding about infrastructure and its maintenance—that, in the first place, the government should never build and own its own office accommodation? Is it the Liberal Party’s position that only the private sector has the right to own offices in which public servants are accommodated—a Liberal Party position against ownership
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