Page 1790 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013

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Question put:

That Mr Rattenbury’s amendments be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendments agreed to.

DR BOURKE (Ginninderra) (6.26): I thank my Labor colleagues for their support on this motion this afternoon. I also thank Mr Rattenbury, whose historical perspective echoed the observations that I had already made about why we are here, why Canberra is here and the importance of balancing out those Sydney-Melbourne rivalries.

From the Canberra Liberals this afternoon we have heard a typical Hanson and Seselja performance. They fluffed, they huffed, they puffed. All we got was a bunch of irrelevancies which were repeated over and over again as if to give them more substance. They did not bother addressing the matter. They cannot even be bothered trying to defend the indefensible, because if Mr Smyth had actually bothered to read the Canberra Times—and he was waving the front page around so eloquently this afternoon—he would have read this afternoon that Mr Abbott said:

… because the public sector payroll in Canberra is about 20,000 more than it was in 2007 and the fact that under this Government, there’s been a very slight reduction in numbers demonstrates that it can be done and it will be done much better and much more effectively under a Coalition government.

They want to do it better and they want to do it to us.

Question put:

That the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

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