Page 789 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 27 February 2013
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the notice paper, and I eagerly await the government’s response. I believe they must have estimates on each of those. If not, it was irresponsible to commit to the project. Has the government considered other rapid transport options, such as buses? I am not sure—nobody is. The government is being secretive on this big ticket item.
Members interjecting—
MR COE: Mr Hanson is right on the money with this motion. It is worth while to call upon the Chief Minister to advise the Assembly if she agrees the ACT government will be the most green and most progressive government. I call on the ACT government to outline to the Assembly the cost impacts of both the election promises and the push to become the most green, progressive government in Australia.
I and many other Canberrans are very concerned about the government’s commitment to being green and progressive. I would rather hear words such as “effective”, “committed”, “responsive”, “efficient”, “proactive”, considered” and so on rather than “green” and “progressive”. This government did not win a blank cheque at the last election, nor did it win a mandate to undertake a Greens agenda. It is irresponsible for this government to claim it did.
MADAM SPEAKER: Just before Mr Corbell commences, I think I heard an interjection that mentioned something about the Queen. I draw members’ attention to the standing orders about the sort of language we should use, especially in relation to heads of state and people of that sort. Mr Corbell, you have the call.
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) (10.35): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Of course, what we hear from the Liberal Party today is the failure, as the Chief Minister has rightly identified, to come to grips with their fourth consecutive election loss here in the ACT. Instead of the new Leader of the Opposition seeking to carve out a new agenda that reflects his priorities as leader and his objectives as the alternative Chief Minister, we hear more of the same negativity, more of the same carping, more of the same lack of vision and lack of perspective on what can be achieved for this city and what challenges this city faces.
Interestingly, in the commentary from those opposite, we hear in particular the attempt to link progressive politics with some apparent fear around policies which are about responding to environmental challenges. This is probably the only opposition I know of in the country—perhaps apart from, of course, their colleagues on the hill whom they ape so successfully—who seem to think that cities do not have a role to play in climate change.
I refer to significant Liberal leaders and past Liberal leaders—people like Robert Doyle, the former Liberal Leader of the Opposition in Victoria, who is now the lord mayor of the second largest city in the country, Melbourne, and who is showing responsibility as a leader in tackling climate change for the city of Melbourne. The city of Melbourne is engaged in organisations globally and is taking actions on the ground to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Is someone like
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