Congratulations to all re-elected and new members of the Assembly. Special congratulations to Tom Emerson and Fiona Carrick, our first independents elected since 1998. On a personal note, that’s it for me. Clearly, there was no need for an old former member when there were perfectly good and exciting new ones who were standing for election instead. So, I will now step back, and my colleague Angela Lount will take over as convenor of the Belco Party in the next few weeks.
I would encourage Andrew Barr to take up my suggestion of a slimmed-down ministry. He only has 10 ALP members, and, if the Greens won’t take ministries this time around (which in my view would be sensible), he could run with six ministers, a speaker, and three backbenchers. He could also have a Green speaker perhaps (possibly Shane Rattenbury, who has done it before).
I think Tom Emerson and Fiona Carrick have the potential to be very effective members of the Assembly. Both have been around and have definite views on what they want to achieve. So overall, despite the Liberals being disappointed, this assembly is an improvement on the last one.
It is interesting that Labor continually tries to paint the local Liberals as some kind of extreme right-wing group. This is just plain rubbish.
The local Liberals should not be conned by this.
There is very little ideology in local government or indeed in state government. It is all about service delivery.
It should be noted that in the not-too-distant past (2012), when the Assembly still had 17 members, the Greens lost three out of four members and the Liberals and Labor went to eight each. The conservative Zed Seselja Liberals actually had 43 votes more than Labor, but of course, the surviving Green, Shane Rattenbury, went with Labor.
In 2016, when the assembly first went to 25 members, there were 12 Labor elected and 11 Liberals. The Liberals under Jeremy Hanson almost got 12, but Caroline Le Couteur won the last seat in Murrumbidgee to take the number of Greens to two. Jeremy Hanson is right wing, but is a very experienced and capable politician.
I do not agree with my old boss Kate Carnell that the Liberals should move further to the left. Nor would I agree they should move further to the right. They should just be themselves, work hard, and get on with the job of holding the government accountable. They need to concentrate on service delivery issues. When they do that, as they did in 2012 and 2016, they do well. Indeed, in this election, if David Pollard had won in Yerrabi, it would be 10 Liberals and three independents and a possible change of government. The result was closer than you think.
One message to Mr Barr. — Andrew, you really do need to stop borrowing money and have a really good look at things like the tram. To stop stage 2B would be the most sensible, fiscally responsible measure you could take at this point in time.
