Page 930 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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We have seen other incidents recently with the egg farm. I will quote in this case from Mr Graham Downie in the Canberra Times:
Failure by ACT Greens MLAs Caroline Le Couteur and Shane Rattenbury to immediately and unambiguously condemn the vandalism of the Parkwood Egg Farm makes them in my opinion unfit for re-election.
Vandalism is a scourge on the Canberra community, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. This cost is often borne by community groups who have every right to expect their elected representatives to take opportunities such as that presented last week to make no excuse for it.
And he makes the point that the Greens prevaricated until they were forced into a position where they had to come out with some statements. But even then they were hedging their bets. Mr Downie goes on:
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Zed Seselja correctly noted that Rattenbury and Le Couteur had been given every opportunity to condemn the vandalism. This prompted Rattenbury to whinge that Seselja was intent on causing a media storm by misrepresenting the Greens.
Indeed, Mr Seselja went pretty hard on this issue because, as we have seen, the Greens have this entirely contradictory view of the world. I am informed that Mr Rattenbury actually hooked into Mr Seselja, that after making those media statements he collared Mr Seselja in the courtyard and had an expletive laden tirade at Mr Seselja. I cannot use the language in this place. It would certainly be ruled unparliamentary. But it was abusive language used by Mr Rattenbury directly to Mr Seselja for making this point. It just goes to show the hypocrisy, the utter hypocrisy, of the Greens when it comes to this issue where they are happy to say, “We do not condemn vandalism; we are happy for vandalism to occur as long as it accords with our ideology,” and when Mr Seselja has the temerity to point out that hypocrisy, then Mr Rattenbury attacks Mr Seselja, abuses him, swears at him in a most vile fashion. It just shows the character of the Greens, their lack of control and their double set of standards.
As we debate this issue today and we talk in this Assembly about an evidence-based approach to crime in the ACT, I think that the first thing we need to do is understand that as parliamentarians our responsibility, our duty, is to make sure that the laws of this land are upheld. We may all have different ideological views on what those laws are but it is not for us to discriminate. It is for us to demand that those laws are upheld, whether we like them or not. They are the laws of this land and the Greens, as they move forward in this place, if they are not to be seen as just the spokespeople for radical activist groups, be it Greenpeace or others, need to learn that and start behaving as parliamentarians and not as violent or radical destroyers of other people’s property.
MS PORTER (Ginninderra) (4.27): I am very happy to be able to speak to this matter today. Advancing evidence-based approaches to policy and program decision making
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