Page 4611 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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They are not going to do it, Ms Le Couteur. They are not going to do it, Ms Hunter. They are not going to do it, Ms Bresnan. They are not going to do it, Mr Rattenbury. It is what the Greens believe in, but they do not have the courage to call this government to heel. That is what happens when you are a partner in a coalition and you do not stand up for what you believe. You end up believing in nothing because you continually acquiesce because you do not have the courage to get this right.
Again, I go back to the litany—Gungahlin Drive extension, hospital car park, Tharwa bridge, the prison, the Emergency Services headquarters. They are all failures that the ordinary person of the ACT has had inflicted on them. The costs of those projects have been taken out of their pockets because the Greens will not stand up to the government.
Recommendation 3:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government whole-of-government office accommodation strategy should be finalised, and considered by the ACT Legislative Assembly, prior to any final decision, or awarding of any contract, with regard to the whole-of-government office building project.
Do the Greens believe in that or not? They supported it in the public accounts committee; they supported it in the estimates report because they said this work should be done. The Greens hold themselves up as the party of good process who say: “We want to work towards a better future. First, do no harm. Economic sustainability. Triple bottom line.” They are out the window when you are held to account by a vote in the Assembly. It is charlatanism to stand up and say you stand for something and then, when the crunch comes, you do not do it. That is what is happening here again today.
The Greens are exposed for believing in nothing but glib slogans and catchphrases like “third-party insurance”, but when somebody calls on the insurance policy, unfortunately, they are probably the worst of insurance companies because you do not read the fine print—“We’ll only do this as long as it doesn’t jeopardise our cosy relationship with our coalition colleagues, the ALP.” It is like those little clauses in the fine print in the insurance policy that we all hate. If you stand up and say you are third-party insurance, well, stand up and mean it. They do not mean it today.
We do not have a whole-of-government office strategy. Indeed, we had Mr Barr say it—the big office building and the Gungahlin office influence the strategy. Whoever heard of projects influencing a strategy? Surely a strategy in place for the long-term survivability of the ACT, the long-term sustainability of the ACT, the sustainability of the public service, things that will influence the quality of the public service, should come first. It is good planning. The government have a burden on their back of so many projects that have not been delivered and so many infrastructure projects that have failed or not met the test of good governance because they did not do the work. And what do the Greens say? “That’s okay. We’ll continue to support you in your failures. We’ll continue to support you in your ineptitude because we do not have the courage under the leadership of Ms Hunter to stand up to our coalition colleagues and,
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