Page 1486 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016
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was cut in 2014. They have imposed a further efficiency dividend on the Australian public service. And they continue their attack on the National Gallery, the National Library and the National Film and Sound Archive, who should be firing up to boost tourism in this city. Instead they are firing their staff as a result of this budget. It is very disappointing, Madam Speaker.
MS LAWDER (Brindabella) (12.24): Certainly, I do not feel that Mr Hanson requires any defence from me, but I was surprised to hear Mr Barr talking about Mr Hanson’s aggressive attitude. I would not imagine that Mr Barr would say that I yell, hector and bully across the chamber. I doubt that anyone would be able to claim that about me. It is one of those instances when someone likes to put something on the record to suit themselves, because I have witnessed many instances of Mr Barr performing this so-called alpha male activity as well.
He talked about personal attacks on people. In that regard I would like to mention Ms Burch’s comment earlier about child care. If Ms Burch had bothered to listen to me when we were having the debate, if she had read the amendment that I put forward or had read Hansard, she would know that Hansard quite clearly says:
… since 1 July 2011, the Federal Government has funded more than $1.044 billion over three years into the Family Support Program.
I was not implying that it was an ongoing program; I was referring to a program that had been going on for three years. Mr Barr talked about personal attacks; I was struck by this at the time that Ms Burch moved her motion about child care and I moved an amendment. Ms Burch obviously did not have enough information or knowledge at her fingertips at that time to rebut what I had said because she came back in an adjournment debate to talk about what I had said—an adjournment debate that was purportedly about the head of CIT who had recently left his position and had then died. She used that adjournment debate to attack me about what I had said about the family support program. That, Madam Speaker, is grubby politics. How do you think the family of that man felt when they read that adjournment debate about their father and husband and saw a petty attack on another MLA as part of what should have been a testament, a memorial, to a man who had given such public service to the ACT?
I think this is an example of the pot calling the kettle black. We cannot say that it is Mr Hanson making grubby personal attacks when exactly the same thing or worse is coming from the other side. I really do not believe this is something at which you should be pointing fingers. It is actually a matter of improving your own behaviour, leading by example. When I speak to people out at mobile offices, that is what people talk about—the appalling behaviour of people in our Assembly, the grubbiness, the dirtiness, the personal attacks.
Mr Hanson is leading an opposition. He is prosecuting an argument, and he is doing that with vigour, passion and determination. Equally, on many occasions, Mr Barr is doing that on the government’s behalf. It does not mean that anyone needs to resort to grubby personal attacks of that kind.
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