Page 2127 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It is important that we look at the sort of leadership that we are getting. The parallels with Julia Gillard are getting clearer and clearer all the time, particularly the “year of decision” comment: “Here is my vision. Here are my decisions. These are the things that I am going to do.” This will not be hard to deliver, because most of it is already underway.
Let me go to “timely access to health care”. There is the north side hospital plan. That is something that has already started. They have already been working on that. If we had not had the misleading information before the 2008 election, when again the current Chief Minister lied to the people of the ACT by saying, “I have all my plans on the table,” when clearly they were not on the table—
Ms Gallagher: Point of order. I do not think—
MR SMYTH: Can we stop the clock?
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mrs Dunne): Can you stop the clock, please, Clerk.
Ms Gallagher: I am not sure that the claim that I lied to the community is parliamentary, and I ask that you consider whether or not Mr Smyth should withdraw that comment.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you have to withdraw the comment.
MR SMYTH: I withdraw, Madam Assistant Speaker, but you have to ask the question. The person who is currently the Chief Minister said before the 2008 election, “All our plans are on the table.” Yet we have a document from the Chief Minister and Calvary asking for a heads of agreement before we got to caretaker so it could proceed whether they won or lost. Clearly, it is not a major plan on the table. And it is a plan that, had it gone ahead, which it would have but for the work of Mr Hanson, would have cost the taxpayer $77 million—$77 million that, on the Chief Minister’s own admission, would not have changed health outcomes one iota. $77 million for nothing. That is the sort of Chief Minister that we have, and that is why, when you look at these lists of achievements and priorities, you have to say, “Most of this is already on the table.”
There is one here under outcomes for “a liveable, sustainable city”—large-scale solar projects. I thought we had an election commitment to a large-scale solar project that got canned. Is the large-scale solar project on or off?
There is the line that “we will have new waste and energy policies” and that “we will release waste and energy policies in 2011”. It is ironic that, a year after the no waste by 2010 target has passed, we are finally going to get a waste and energy policy from a government that is not interested in the whole concept. The ACT used to show the world leadership on the management of waste. We set the target. We set the benchmark, and it has gone around the world.
Ms Gallagher: And you knew you would never be responsible for achieving it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video