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Canberra Today 16°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Assembly still ‘challenged’

LiberalsIT was only yesterday that Chief Minister Katy Gallagher “challenged” the Assembly to improve their behaviour in the chamber.

But despite reminding the chamber of that challenge again this afternoon and also claiming “the behaviour has been much more appropriate this week than it was last week” it certainly didn’t appear to have improved a whole lot watching today’s Question Time.

The verbal squabbles between the Government and the Opposition were reignited when the Opposition asked their usual ruse about whether the Government thought it was morally right to accept proceeds from gambling.

In Gallagher’s response she said the Opposition was trying to deflect the attention away from their “morally corrupt behaviour” around the acceptance of grant money intended for volunteers.

The comment led to an eruption of interjections, which evolved into an open and heated discussion across the chamber between the Government and the Opposition.

Speaker Shane Rattenbury, torn between both sides of the chamber, wasn’t sure where to look.

“Order, everyone,” Rattenbury said. “As I try to pick through this political battle, it’s not an invitation to have a conversation across the chamber.”

Once everything was in order, Gallagher happily offered to withdraw her comments, but was soon cut short by the timer.

“Oh, I was just warming up,” Gallagher said.

Liberal frontbencher Vicki Dunne remains upset by the offensive comments made towards her last Thursday night by John Hargreaves. In a series of questions to the Chief Minister about the comments and her handling of the situation, Dunne asked her own question in regards to the incident: “Would you consider the comments acceptable if they were made about you and would you be satisfied if the perpetrator had said they were only sorry for the offence caused not for the language itself? Would you be satisfied if you were told it was a joke and the you were told to watch your own language?”

Clearly, annoyed with the repetitive nature of the Liberal’s line of questioning, Gallagher continued to explain the process, once again, on how she handled the her apology concluding: “I am sorry you still feel the way you do. I am not sure what further action I can take in order to make you feel better.”

But it wasn’t all squabbles and apologies. There’s been a breakthrough – Labor frontbencher Joy Burch didn’t read from a script!

In a series of questions from the Greens about her knowledge of safe shelters for the homeless in the ACT, Burch with relative confidence used the table, instead of notes, to hold herself up and answer the questions in the most direct way she could.

Now all we need to see is whether she can answer simple questions with a “yes” or “no” answer.

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Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

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