Page 3171 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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That is the legacy of this minister. It is just unacceptable to say, “You should be grateful because you’ve got a new fire shed,” when you have been bullied at work. It is just unacceptable to say, “You should be grateful because you’ve got a bright new shiny fire truck,” when you are a victim of bullying or sexist or misogynistic behaviour. It just shows how out of touch this minister is. He is more interested in all the noughts after the numbers that he spends. He is after the hundreds of millions of dollars that he can spend rather than the individual wellbeing of the officers in his charge.
He is the minister responsible for all of the staff in ESA. He is the minister responsible for reporting to this place and he seemingly does not care. It is funny when you hear a minister say, “I’ve delivered things like the Tidbinbilla fire shed.” How late was the Tidbinbilla fire shed, minister, and how many questions did it take until it occurred? How many estimates reports did I grill you on it until it finally happened? He said, “We built the Rivers fire shed.” That is right. There is a gap at the back of the shed and the doors were too narrow, and the toilets did not work properly. You could not turn in the toilets because it was not built properly. Claiming things like that as some sort of achievement shows what a shallow minister we have.
If you look at all of the capital works that this minister delivers, whether it be from Gungahlin Drive through to the Molonglo fire shed, to Rivers, to Tidbinbilla—to any of the places that he lists—I think it took 13 years for this minister to finally deliver a project under budget, early and on scope. That has got to be some sort of record in Australian politics—that you can be a minister for 13 years and it takes 13 years until you deliver a single project. That is this minister. This is a minister who is distracted. He is distracted by the big numbers. He is distracted by travelling the world stage. He is distracted by transformational projects. He is distracted and he is not up to the job of running ESA.
I could read that litany from 28 October last year and then add to it the litany that I have referred to today. You can be dismissive of all those issues that I have raised, but people have brought them to me; they are of concern to them and their workplace. Your dismissive answers to the questions this week, minister, have been noted by those who were there, who know the truth of what happened, and your dismissive approach and your lack—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you will address the chair.
MR SMYTH: Through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, the dismissive approach of the minister is noticed by those who have watched question time, read the transcripts and seen how the minister behaves. They know you for who you are and they are concerned that their services are being run down because you are not up to the job.
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, you will address the chair.
MR SMYTH: Through you, Mr Assistant Speaker, they are concerned about the place that they work in. They are concerned about the jobs that they love. They are concerned about the community they serve. They just want to get on with their job. What they want, minister, is some leadership and my fear for them is they will never get it from you.
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