Page 218 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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but she could have made a real contribution as the minister for urban services to this debate. She could have come down and said: “I was going to do this tomorrow, but Mr Coe has been proactive. He’s been working with his electorate, and the people of Belconnen deserve an answer from this government. Although I was going to table this tomorrow, I will table it today for the information of people, and I will address the issues in Mr Coe’s motion in light of the statement I was going to make tomorrow. But I’ll show how flexible I am—how cool and laid-back I am—and I won’t say, ‘Well, I was going to do it tomorrow, and I’m going to continue to do it tomorrow.’ I will work with everybody and we’ll actually have an informed debate.”
But what we have got is putting it off because Ms Gallagher does not want to deal with the substantive issue. It is easy for her to come up with this discourteous, dismissive amendment—“let’s delete all words after ‘that’”—to put down the people of Belconnen and to put down the member who has worked for the people of Belconnen, because “I’m not ready”.
The amendment is shameful. If Ms Gallagher as the minister for urban services was interested in the transport issues of the families of Belconnen who are crying out for decent local roads, she would address this issue now. I congratulate Mr Coe on his policy initiative. I congratulate my colleagues on agreeing to this policy initiative. I congratulate Mr Coe on his attempts today to get better transport services for our constituents in Belconnen.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (4.29): I join with my colleague Amanda Bresnan in noting that this really has not been a well-thought-through or well-considered idea at all. In fact, I was a little taken aback then when Mrs Dunne said that it was a policy announcement, because, if this is a policy announcement, I would have expected far more research to have gone into it. It is almost like Mr Coe woke up and had a bit of a thought bubble one morning.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, that will do, thanks.
MS HUNTER: Ms Bresnan clearly laid out a number of issues.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: No. When somebody else is here, not while I am here.
Mr Doszpot interjecting—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Doszpot, that is the last time. Next time I am going to name you. I will not put up with it.
MS HUNTER: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ms Bresnan clearly laid out some of the practical issues and realities about Barry Drive that are very different to Adelaide Avenue, and one of the clear ones that she did lay out was the fact that there are bus stops. There are buses stopping in that bus lane and that, of course, would be a
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