Page 33 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 27 November 2012
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The purpose of government and taxation is to provide for the household that which they cannot provide for themselves, but we must ward against a government that takes more than its fair share. For every time a government takes a higher proportion of our income and uses it to make decisions for us, our freedom is decreased. I believe Canberra can be the first in the nation, but not the guinea pigs of the nation, being used for experimental policies driven by extreme ideology. Instead we should have a high benchmark and best practice services and amenities, fit for a national capital.
I have sought election to help to build the future, a future that is worthy of those who came before us—the bush capital of the great Sir Robert Menzies and the inspirational Dame Enid Lyons. As a mother of 12, she was a woman with a deep understanding of human nature and she sums up the Liberal Party’s vision for the role of government very well. She said:
I believe that government should help those who cheerfully shoulder their own burdens, instead of taking all responsibility from people who seem to be less and less willing to rely on their own efforts. I am ‘all out’ to help the men and women who are having their families today in spite of the difficulties they have met.
Human effort is the basis of all human progress, the source of all economic value. The only means of providing proper living standards. Let us help and protect the weak; that is surely the duty of every people. But let us not discourage the strong lest they too lose their vigour and with their decline bring about the weakening of a whole nation.
Today, as then, her warning stands. I believe in reward for individual effort, in the right to personal freedom and the need for individual responsibility, in the basic right to be able to live our lives without interference of social engineers, in the intrinsic value of human life at every age and in the ultimate aristocracy of human conscience. I also believe in government which does not interfere with these rights.
Let us see instead for Canberra first-class services, accessible health care, an outstanding education system, a return to strong and effective law and order, ample supplies of homes for young couples on reasonably sized housing blocks, a local shop and a park for our kids to play in.
My vision is of an efficient, cost-effective, responsible government—of lower rates and charges and benchmarked best practice services—a government that takes its obligations to the people of Canberra not as an opportunity for social experiment but as a solemn duty. My goal is a return to the Canberra envisaged by our city’s architect, Walter Burley Griffin, a beautiful art deco styled showcase of our achievements as a people and our aspirations as a country. This is the nation’s capital and this is my home.
Standing orders—amendments
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (10.52), by leave: I move:
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