Page 798 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 27 February 2013
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Now we have seen Mr Hanson come in here and go, “Actually, it is really only $1 billion.” Talk about rubbery economics!
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, I am going to be warning you soon if you do not stop.
MR RATTENBURY: But hey, what is a billion dollars between friends? And these people want to hold the treasury bench! You are kidding me. A billion dollar changeover in the space of a couple of months! Where is the economic credibility in that sort of public pronouncement?
Mr Coe brought up another attempt to rewrite history and distort what actually happened when he brought up his motion on light rail last week. If members recall that debate, they will remember that Mr Coe put forward a request for a whole series of information, much of which is publicly available. I do not know if Mr Coe has not looked for it, cannot be bothered or has not got the staff to do it, but much of the information he asked for last week is publicly available. I said that in my remarks, and that is why I did not support the motion. Why should we call on the government to release something that is already publicly available on a website? It is simply nonsensical. I take my vote seriously in this place: I cannot vote for something like that; there is no credibility to it. What we also did was amend that motion to say that information that Mr Coe was after that was not yet available because it had not been done would be made available in a public and transparent way.
For Mr Coe to come here and say that the ALP and the Greens are trying to hide this information from the public is simply disingenuous, and that is the most generous description I can give it.
I want to also reflect on something else. Mr Hanson brought back up yesterday’s parking matter of public importance. I was particularly amused that he brought back the car sharing policy. I think this reflects the fact that they have not asked or simply do not understand what that is about. In other Australian cities—as well as other parts of the world but here in Australia—car sharing is a notion whereby a private company comes along, and I am going to explain this in some detail because you clearly missed it, and makes a car available. Members join a club; they can then book on the internet to use that car when they want to use it—maybe for an hour, maybe for three hours. It is designed to go in high-density areas, such as, say, new Acton. This is not about forcing people to get in cars together; it is about observing that not everybody wants to own a car. It is actually quite expensive to own a car, but for a couple of hundred dollars a year you can join a club and then access a car for the odd hour or two if you need to drive to Fyshwick to pick something up but most of the time you do not need a car.
That is what a car sharing policy is about. The changes to parking regulations that go with that are about government creating the rules so that those companies can own a parking space where they can store that vehicle so that members of the public know
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