Page 710 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
But we have seen with Mr Hargreaves’s approach to members on this side—the fact that I was named for uttering one word, a word that was not uttered across the chamber but to my colleague Mr Hanson—that he is not fair-minded. We can take that in our stride, but we cannot support a person who has been openly disloyal to the members of this community—so disloyal that eventually his own party had to ask him to resign, so disloyal that he is just adding to the litany of slurs that he has made against members of this community and sectors of this community. It is time we in this place drew a line in the sand.
I take up the point that Mr Hanson raised. I noticed Mr Hargreaves and Ms Hunter leaving the building last night. I thought that Ms Hunter was being very sympathetic to Mr Hargreaves’s plight. I did think that it was interesting to consider that if Mr Coe had passed the note to Mr Hargreaves, would Ms Hunter be leaving the building in such a friendly way and discussing whatever it was they were discussing in a pretty chummy way?
Ms Hunter: Oh, now you don’t like it.
MRS DUNNE: Look, I think that you actually just have to do the mental exercise. If it had been the other way around, what would the confected outrage have been from Ms Gallagher and everybody along there and everybody on the crossbenches? They would have been falling over themselves. They would have been falling over themselves to be the first person to condemn Mr Coe. Mr Coe would have been sent to Coventry by every member on the crossbench and the Labor Party.
I thought it was interesting, given what happened last night, that Mr Hargreaves was being supported by members of the crossbench. I am just putting it out there and I am just asking people to do the mental exercise. How would it have been if it had been the other way around?
Mr Hargreaves has demonstrated time and again that he is not fit to serve this Assembly in any capacity in relation to speakership and it is time that he resigned. It is an issue which is a gift of the Speaker, but if Mr Hargreaves had any real sense of remorse and any real sense of the appropriateness of what should be done, if he had any real sense of the difference between a statesman and a politician, a parliamentarian and a politician, he would not have to be asked to resign. He would have just done it himself.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development and Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation) (10.37): It is a little hard to know where to start on this one, but let me work through all of the issues as I see them.
I have accepted an apology from Mr Hargreaves in relation to what I think everyone agrees was a very poor joke. I have also accepted—and fully understand, and wish to acknowledge on the public record—John’s very strong support on the issue of the advancement of the cause of gay and lesbian Canberrans over his entire time in politics. John has been a very strong supporter of every element of legislative reform
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video