Page 4912 - Week 13 - Thursday, 2 November 2017
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Unfortunately for Mr Parton, Mr Parton seems only capable of running from controversy to controversy, not a government.
My point is that the Canberra Liberals have options. I want you all to take a moment, look around and think about who is coming up next. We are only 12 months into this term and we are already seeing this level of desperation from Mr Coe. It is clear that his leadership is terminal. It might not be this year or even the next, but sooner or later he is gone. You cannot come into the Assembly and move a no-confidence motion against the Chief Minister and, when asked to present real evidence, simply shrug your shoulders. It is not tenable. We see through it. The Canberra community sees through it. If you had any honour, you would do the right thing and resign.
MS CODY (Murrumbidgee) (12.26): What an incredible week it has been here in the Assembly: a week when we have seen the government deliver significant legislation on tackling crime, gaming, protecting our environment, planning and some really cool changes to the permitted uses of Lake Burley Griffin; a week when we have heard reports from ministers about their year of achievement, including improvements for female detainees at the Alexander Maconochie Centre, better access to justice and the protection of our very own little eagle; and a week when we have heard from the Select Committee on an Independent Integrity Commission, the most significant anti-corruption agenda since self-government.
And then we have this: a motion of no confidence, of no consequence. I would describe this as a distraction, except that I am pretty good at multi-tasking. I have quite enjoyed speculating all week as to which blind alley the opposition leader was going to run up. I see he has taken the advice of Mr Hanson and Mr Parton that if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick. Except, as we can see, they have left their boy in a hole, a muddy hole that they have encouraged him to dig.
I am not here to claim that this government is perfect at everything, but I do have confidence that it is not engaged in corrupt decisions. I also share with all right-minded Canberrans a rising curiosity as to how the Liberal Party have come to be so obsessed with trade unions, and the CFMEU in particular, that they are blinded not only to truth but also to self-preservation. I have always understood that Mr Coe leads a party of selfish individualism. I always thought that his highly ideological approach would extend to protecting his own credibility and acting in his own self-interest. His desire to be one of the big boys, like so many scandal-prone federal Liberals, has seen him following their mistakes.
After a century of royal commissions failing to find crimes, Mr Coe’s Liberals still fantasise about a world where their party are the crime-busting comic book heroes a young boy reads about under the covers at night. After his Liberal mates diverted hundreds of millions of federal tax dollars from protecting vulnerable Australians to attacking unions, without finding the evidence of wrongdoing the Liberals dream of at night; after having to sack the bloke they employed to run the ABCC because he was bent; and after endless embarrassments of the Liberals’ attack on unions and working people, Mr Coe’s lack of maturity has been taken advantage of again by the old nags in his party. And here he is, stuck in his muddy hole, fantasising that the world is corrupt, as Liberal ideology has taught him.
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