Page 5209 - Week 12 - Thursday, 27 October 2011
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This is about integrity and it is about the role of the Chief Minister. When we have a Chief Minister who now tells us that what she was doing was guesstimating in her head what the Liberals’ promise was, that diminishes the position of the Chief Minister.
There is the issue of what people expect and what they hear in these kinds of debates. The opposition puts out a policy. Our policy numbers were based on the government’s numbers. We asked them questions, we asked them how much revenue they received and we did the numbers. We presented those numbers and we made a promise on the back of that. We relied on those numbers. Then we had a Chief Minister who says to the world at large, to the people of the ACT, “This will cost $10 million annually.”
Ms Gallagher interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Mr Hargreaves): Stop the clock. Mr Seselja, resume your seat, please. The Chief Minister will come to order. Resume your seat for a second, please, Mr Seselja; I did ask for the clock to stop. Members of the government will realise that I did set a standard for those opposite. I will not tolerate interjections across the chamber. The government members will come to order, please. Mr Seselja, you have the floor.
MR SESELJA: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I will read from the Canberra Times. It says:
But Mr Seselja’s political rivals were quick to pounce, with Chief Minister Katy Gallagher demanding to know how the registration promise, which she said would cost $10million annually, would be funded.
Remember how this all came about, too. We made our policy announcement having got the numbers from the government. The Chief Minister called a press conference to respond. She called a press conference to respond. She wanted to undermine the claim. What she is telling us today is, firstly, that she was verballed and, secondly, that when she was verballed in the Canberra Times on an opposition election promise no-one in her office bothered to correct it. She did not bother to correct it. We have now had six days—five days since it was reported on Saturday—and apparently no-one in the government saw it. Apparently none of them in that office look at the news clippings—or they saw it and they were comfortable with it; they were happy to allow it to stand. We did not see a correction. We did not see the Chief Minister’s office putting out a correction saying, “I was verballed; what I said was that it could be $10 million over a period of time.” She did not. She was happy to allow that to stand.
Now the defence by Ms Gallagher is that she guesstimated it in her head. People should be taking note of that. The people of the ACT expect that when the Chief Minister speaks about numbers and opposition election costings, she is basing it on more than a guesstimate in her head. They would assume that she has received a briefing—that she has sought a briefing from Treasury or from the relevant department saying what this is likely to cost. She did not bother to do that. She was happy to just pluck figures out of the air.
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