Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee will today put forward a motion of no confidence in Chief Minister Andrew Barr, whom she alleges is unable to guarantee supply and deliver a stable coalition government.
Ms Lee’s motion comes after Shane Rattenbury, the ACT Greens leader, senior Cabinet Minister, and Expenditure Review Committee member, committed earlier this month to vote on the floor of the Assembly against an item of expenditure in yesterday’s ACT Budget: a $41 million subsidy from rate payers to the horse racing industry.
Ms Lee considers this an “extraordinary admission” that the budget delivered by the Chief Minister does not have the full support of his government.
Mr Rattenbury said the ACT Greens have full confidence in the Chief Minister, and would not support Ms Lee’s vote of no confidence.
“This fractured Labor-Greens government is falling apart with Ministers indicating they will be voting against their own government,” said Ms Lee.
“The ability to pass the budget and guarantee supply is the most fundamental duty of a government; without the ability to do so, the ACT Labor-Greens government literally cannot function.”
Under a Memorandum of Understanding, the ACT Government will pay $41,144,000 to the Canberra Racing Club and Canberra Harness Racing Club over the next four years to 2026-27.
“The Budget is supposed to reflect what we value as a community, and the future we want to build together,” Mr Rattenbury said earlier. “I am confident the community would prefer this $41 million to go to public housing and homelessness, or mental health support, or climate change adaptation, or public transport, or any measure of other things.
“We must consistently strive to move and improve government policies, and to reflect these in the ACT Budget, and we simply cannot support this allocation of much needed funds.”
Ms Lee considers Mr Rattenbury’s position contrary to the Parliamentary and Governing Agreement, which all Labor and Greens MLAs are signatory to.
The Agreement requires Labor and Greens MLAs to “guarantee support for the passage of Appropriation Bills” and to “agree to work together as a Cabinet and Government”.
“This position by the ACT Greens completely undermines the principle of cabinet solidarity, the bedrock principle of our Westminster system that once Cabinet has made a decision, all Cabinet Ministers are expected to support the decision publicly,” Ms Lee said.
“Mr Rattenbury and the Greens have thrown all these principles of good governance and good government out the window, and as such, the ability of this government is irreparably undermined and damaged.
“The Greens are holding the government to ransom, and the Chief Minister must seriously ask himself, if they can do it for this, what is to stop them from doing it for something else in this or any future budget?
“Labor and the Greens are making a complete mockery of this parliament, and are showing contempt and disrespect for the people of Canberra.
“The Chief Minister has lost control of his government, and the Canberra Liberals have lost confidence in the Chief Minister,” Ms Lee concluded.
