Page 1139 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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point of talking about Ms Cheyne’s apparent engagement in making the report better only to backflip at a very late point. That was more in line with Ms Cody’s deep-seated and often stated antipathy towards the inquiry as a whole.
Madam Speaker, each sitting day, you ask us to stand and pray or reflect on our responsibilities to the people of the ACT. It occurs to me that perhaps some people have their fingers crossed behind their back while they are doing that, because they have abrogated that responsibility by reverting to their partisan roots instead of advocating for the rights of the people of the ACT.
I feel that what happened was an egregious abandonment of their responsibility. I feel that it was an appalling abrogation of their responsibility as elected members of this place. These members, and by extension the government, do not seem to care about that abrogation of responsibility to the people of the ACT.
For me personally, as a member of committees, it has meant a loss of trust, a feeling of betrayal, and a feeling that this was a planned exercise in trickery. Again, I would say that seems to be a hallmark of this government. It is a sad and sorry day. It is a sad and sorry day for accountability and transparency for the people of the ACT, the taxpayers, the people whose hard-earned money not only pays for us in this place but pays for the deals, the purchases and the sales that this government undertakes on their behalf. It is on their behalf—not on behalf of their mates, but on behalf of the people of the ACT.
It is a failure of accountability and transparency, and for me it is a loss of trust in the system that I thought was there to protect us. It is a loss for the people of the ACT that some members of the public accounts committee could not discharge their duty in the way in which committees are intended to operate. I am deeply, deeply saddened by that today.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
The Assembly adjourned at 6.18 pm until Thursday, 4 June 2020, at 10 am.
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