Page 2749 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 September 2014
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of these problems that exist in health, education and public transport are the sole responsibility of those opposite. After 13 years of pulling the levers in office, it is fair to say that the problems that they are proclaiming to fix are in fact problems that they have created themselves. The same may even be true when it comes to the government’s handling of the Mr Fluffy issue, but perhaps we will have to wait for a board of inquiry to unravel the truth there.
What ACT taxpayers now have, and have had for a very long time, is a government that fails to plan for the future, a government that rates its own legacy projects above the needs of its citizens. What the ACT has is a government that rates ideological pursuits as its first priority. Pet projects are the name of the game here.
I have spoken many times in this place about the residents of Uriarra who have had large scale solar development forced upon them despite their robust opposition to it on very valid grounds. The government has continued to ignore the residents’ argument against the project, vowing to proceed in an effort to become the greenest city in Australia. This pursuit has also had an impact on residents in surrounding areas. We saw just this morning in a petition brought by my colleague Ms Lawder on the wind farms that the government has prioritised and has on its agenda having an impact not only on Canberra as the taxpayers support these initiatives but also on the wider region as residents are forced to live with the result of these proposals.
Stopping the whole city from smoking is another pet project that this Chief Minister is championing. The discussions have now begun about whether smoking should be banned at the jail. Yet in total contrast to this, the Labor and Greens government have outlined as a priority in their parliamentary agreement that it is a moral cause to hand out needles to prisoners in our jail system just so they can continue with the drug addiction that most likely brought them there in the first place, all the while ignoring the concerns of corrections officers and detainees who are at the coal face in these situations daily. This is a priority of the Labor-Green alliance. This is yet another project like light rail that will proceed come hell or high water, all in the name of ideology.
Madam Assistant Speaker, I am proud to be part of an alternative government that has vowed that priorities will be reordered and will focus on the true needs of Canberrans come the next election. I am proud that ideological follies such as light rail will not proceed under a Canberra Liberal government and that the focus will once again be on the things that matter most to Canberrans: putting families first, getting our hospitals in order, ensuring that our schools can cope with future demand, maintaining our existing ageing infrastructure, and focusing on affordable and deliverable infrastructure projects that benefit the whole community. These are the priorities of a responsible government, a government that I hope to be part of.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health, Minister for Higher Education and Minister for Regional Development) (3.36): It is so important that it took eight minutes of the scheduled time, although I should not encourage long speeches that are repetitive in nature in this place. I am very happy to—
Mr Coe: And executive business has gone so long today, hasn’t it?
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