Page 117 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 February 2016
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There is an approach of negativity, opposition and scaremongering, much as we saw with Tony Abbott, with his anti-carbon price campaign. That is what we are seeing here: pick a single issue; create a whole lot of scare stories about it; run it as hard as you can at the election; hide the fact that you have not got much else to say—no real policy platform, no clear agenda. We saw where that got Tony Abbott. We saw that—
Mr Coe: Elected.
MR RATTENBURY: It got him elected on a false premise. If that is where you want to go, that is fine: that is your personal integrity; so be it. But we also saw what happened to Tony Abbott in the long run; we know where he is now.
Canberrans do not want that. They want a serious, stable government that delivers good infrastructure for this city in a timely manner, in a well-costed manner. That is exactly what we are doing. I will not be supporting Mr Coe’s motion today, because it simply lets Canberra down. (Time expired.)
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.56): I rise to support Mr Coe’s very well thought through motion and his continued advocacy on behalf of ACT ratepayers. Ultimately, that is who we stand here to represent—not the international consortiums; not the people who are advocating on behalf of the consortium. We ask: what is it that the ACT ratepayer wants? Let us take this to the election and let us have the ACT ratepayer make the decision, because at the moment the government are seemingly acting in the interests of themselves, of the Greens and of the international consortium—as opposed to the ratepayer.
A similar conundrum was faced in Victoria recently. Much has been said about that but, ultimately, when the voters of Victoria, with the facts before them, had to make a decision, they decided in favour of Labor and what is now the Andrews government. They did not like the fact that there was a government that essentially was signing contracts and riding roughshod over the community, over their democratic rights. I think this is a very important point: people want to have their say because they do not believe the government.
The ACT government stand here today making assertions and claims similar to the claims that they made about the dam. It was this government that said the dam would be built for $140 million. The ratepayer of the ACT, ultimately, is paying out over $400 million. It was Mr Corbell who said that the jail would cost $110 million. It must be approaching $200 million now. It was Mr Corbell that said we were building it with 300 beds and that would be enough capacity in its current configuration for 25 years. That simply was not true. The jail is now bursting at its seams with well over 300 inmates.
The government failed to tell the truth and get their numbers right on the GDE. We saw the hospital car park more than double in price. There is the secure mental health facility that Mr Corbell promised to open five years ago. It was meant to be open five years ago at a cost of $11 million. They said they were going to build a new tower block at the Canberra Hospital for $800 million. That has gone off the table. The
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