Page 630 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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MR DOSZPOT: I am just repeating what you said. Mr Hargreaves said—
Members interjecting—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hargreaves, Mr Seselja! Mr Doszpot has the floor.
MR DOSZPOT: Thank you. Mr Hargreaves came down and said the following in the adjournment speech:
I need only five minutes. I was not going to rise to the bait of the challenges that those opposite were firing at me as I listened to the television upstairs but I thought what I would do in the adjournment debate was come down and tell you why it was, Mr Speaker, that I did not rise to the bait then—because I was treating the motion and those speakers with the contempt that they were due.
An interesting admission yet again, Mr Hargreaves. The motion was not about you. The motion was about the Tuggeranong community. But you told us again that you were not rising to the bait because you were treating the motion—the motion about the Tuggeranong community—with the contempt it deserved. They were your words, Mr Hargreaves, and I am astounded.
Mr Smyth, Mr Seselja and I were fair targets, Mr Hargreaves. You had every right to respond to us. But you had no right, nor any possible reason, to attack the community, the elderly, members of the Tuggeranong Community Council, and members of your own electorate. Your arrogance and disrespect to the community has now made you the subject of the motion by Mr Smyth which started this morning, and this motion is about you, Mr Hargreaves. This motion is also about us, about this Assembly, and the standards that are set in this Assembly and the standards we expect.
The government and the Greens have a subtext in this debate—it is almost along the lines: “Well, it’s Johnno. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. It’s okay. He didn’t mean it.” It is the Chief Minister’s responsibility—and I wish she was here to hear it—to ensure her ministers and backbenchers conform with the ministerial code of conduct. What did the Chief Minister say in her apology? “Well, this was John Hargreaves’s comment. We don’t condone it.” Well, Chief Minister, that’s another wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Chief Minister, when are you going to stand up and enforce some discipline amongst your people? How many years has this been going on for? Jon Stanhope also apparently always said, “Well, good old Johnno, lovable larrikin.”
So what has good old Johnno said in his response to this motion this morning? He apologised to the Tuggeranong Community Council because he allegedly found that they are not the ones he was thinking of. These are—surprise, surprise—newly elected volunteers. So good old Johnno’s insult to the community, to the elderly, has now gone even wider. It now includes all the past members of the Tuggeranong Community Council. For how long, Mr Hargreaves? For two years? Three years? How far back does it go?
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