Page 1529 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2016

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The Chief Minister only wants to be seen at events and locations that attract younger members of our community but given a significant percentage of his own electorate are not in that demographic and they feel alienated by him, he needs to be making a better effort. This amendment actually goes nowhere near helping the community understand Mr Barr’s impact as Chief Minister on behalf of the whole community.

Through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Barr went through my motion point by point, and the people listening to Mr Barr’s response were in no doubt about what Mr Barr said when he got to that part in the “notes” in my motion. And there are plenty of anecdotal stories about Mr Barr and the way he reflects on people who are a lot older than he is and the way that he does not necessarily want to communicate with them. I did not want to go into all of those details. I actually wanted to help bring this issue to Mr Barr’s attention and hope that he would address the issues that are out there in the community and are quite serious from his point of view. But that is his choice, and I am rather saddened that he does not take note.

Madam Deputy Speaker, through you, over the years Mr Barr and I had quite a few interesting clashes when he was minister for education. I kept count of the number of backflips that Mr Barr performed, for which I coined the phrase Barr flip. But I respected Mr Barr’s backflips. It showed that he actually listened and admitted when he could have done better, when he could have listened. Had he listened earlier, he could have made different decisions. But he backflipped, he compromised, he at least listened. What we are asking through this motion is for Mr Barr to actually consider what the community is saying to him, and if apologising is too difficult then I cannot give him any other advice. But I certainly would suggest that he do that.

It would be most appropriate for Mr Barr to perform another Barr flip and apologise for the statements and get on with doing his job of representing the whole community, including seniors, rather than censoring my motion through this outrageous amendment from Dr Bourke that would actually contradict the content of the ACT active ageing action plan. I will take you through the motion this afternoon.

Mr Barr has already gone through the “notes” and has agreed with most of the points that I made. He made some suggestion about a typo in one of them. But if we go past his view of the event at which he delivered that address and his view of what he said and those of the community, there is a discrepancy. I am not the one that is saying there is a discrepancy. I am simply reporting what the community said.

Apart from point (a) in part two of the motion in the “calls on the Chief Minister”—and this is where, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I suggested to Mr Rattenbury that if he wanted to be working for the seniors community he could either ask Mr Barr to apologise or ask for that number one point to be taken out if that is what he wanted to do—all of the other points in there are valid points. “Recognise the important contribution that seniors have made to the ACT economy”. Why do we want to take that out? “Acknowledge the vital role that seniors continue to play within the ACT economy and social community”. Why do you want to delete that, Dr Bourke, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker? “Provide reassurance to ACT seniors that he”—Mr Barr—“and the ACT Government do not support ageist policies and attitudes”. You do not want to make that statement? “Ensure equal employment


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