Page 4627 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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“That is good; that is really helpful.” And the attorney will sit there and wring his hands and go: “I’m sorry; it is too late. I had to have submissions in by such and such a date for this year’s budget process. We will have to leave it another 12 months.”
That is the concern I have with pushing it out to March next year. It reflects poorly that, despite an estimates recommendation in the middle of this year, it is going to take us until March next year to even identify possible solutions that we might consider funding in the budget. Sure, the budget pressures are there, but we are setting it up so that we will not even be able to consider them. If there was some really useful way that we could proceed that would, perhaps, provide both a short-term solution and also a longer term solution—I will come back to that in my closing remarks.
I found the contribution from Mrs Dunne a little surprising. It is clear that up in the Liberal party room this morning they passed around the angry pills and said: “It’s only 12 months until the election. It is time we came in here and really gave the Greens a good solid bollocking today.” That is all it has been this morning. Mr Smyth got up and had a real go in the discussion about the office building. It is all about the Greens today. We are flattered by the attention, but the issues deserve more attention than we do. I would suggest that members try to focus on the issues on occasion.
The irony is this. Mrs Dunne stood up here, thumped the table and said: “What we need is action. The Greens are all just talk. They are just motions.” The fact is that I have been persistently campaigning on this for 18 months from the crossbench, pushing as hard as I can to get something happening and actually sticking to it—like Mrs Dunne has claimed she does on Bimberi. You slowly but surely ease your way forward and you try and make progress. Mrs Dunne stands up and gives us the big table thumping speech, but then she says: “But we are not going to direct the government. We are going to strip that bit out because it is not the convention.”
There is a whole lot in there. She says, “But I have threatened the attorney that if he does not do something I will be back here next March and I will censure him.” Rather than getting it done now, she would rather come back here and give the attorney a political slap around next March, because that is far more effective in getting a result! But hey, let us talk about platitudes, Mrs Dunne. It is all politics and no action from the Liberal Party.
Then there is the issue of whether “direct” is an appropriate form in this place. She says that she had a chat to Mr Smyth. I recall Mr Smyth last year—either late last year or early this year—imploring me on a matter related to the tourism portfolio, which Mr Smyth and I share. Mr Smyth implored me to support his desire to use the word “direct” in a motion. At the time I declined, because I felt the circumstances did not warrant it.
That is a debate that is there to be had, but do not come in here and give me some sort of lecture about “direct” being an inappropriate form of the house. It is rank hypocrisy for it to be good enough for Mr Smyth on a tourism matter but not good enough now. I did not agree with Mr Smyth. Mrs Dunne may not agree with me here that it is appropriate to “direct”, but do not tell me it is an inappropriate form of the house. Please have a little bit of consistency rather than using the sort of stuff we have seen this morning.
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