Page 10 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 6 November 2012
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democracy is all the more vibrant for your involvement. To my Greens colleague, Mr Rattenbury, congratulations again on your election to the Assembly.
Madam Speaker, this Assembly will be very different from the last Assembly. Indeed it will be very different from any Assembly that has come before, and that stems from the results of this election. The result is that we have the biggest party room in Liberal Party history, an achievement of which all Liberals can feel proud. We have the biggest ever vote by any party in the electorate of Brindabella, an achievement of which I feel personally very proud. We achieved swings in every electorate, we gained support in every area, we had more new people in more new places voting Liberal.
Lastly, it is a matter of record that the Liberal Party in this election won the popular vote, and that is something of which we are proud. The Canberra Liberals did achieve a record level of support. Of course I must express disappointment that this is the first time in territory history that the party with the most votes has not had the opportunity to form government.
We accept the process that was undertaken and the process of this representative democracy, but that does not mean that we agree with the result. The future of this territory has been taken from the party with the highest number of votes and dictated by the party with the fewest number of votes. The price of that decision is yet to be seen. We will see how it plays out over the coming years.
Winning the popular vote but being denied government means we have more responsibility than ever to stand up for Canberrans who have been denied in this outcome. More than ever we need to keep an eye on costs, something the electorate clearly voted against. More than ever we will stand up against policies that push us further to the extremes, something the electorate emphatically voted against. More than ever we will be holding this new coalition government to account.
Canberrans voted in their tens of thousands for something different than they had before. Unfortunately, in our opinion, they get more of the same. For the tens of thousands who voted for change but were denied, for the tens of thousands who voted for lower costs but were ignored, for the tens of thousands who voted for better local services, lower rates and charges, more support for the suburbs, we will stand up for you, we will stand up for our principles and we will stand up for all people of Canberra.
Statement by member
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.47), by leave: Madam Speaker, I welcome you to the speakership. I wish you well in a role that is not always easy, and I think I can speak from experience in making that observation.
Today I have given my vote to Katy Gallagher as Chief Minister. As is a matter of public record, I made that decision last week after entering into discussions with both the Labor and Liberal parties. The results of the election left me with the considerable responsibility of exercising the casting vote today as to who should form government.
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