Katy Gallagher is supporting a Coalition moves to review the GST as part of a wider tax assessment, despite not actually being a part of the Coalition reports ABC News.
This is brilliant. This is fantastic. I make fun of politicians a lot on this site, but here is one doing the right thing.
I’m not saying [...]

Liberal Senator Gary Humphries is eulogising the remarkable Lorna Hazel Craig who passed away on Sunday:
Miss Craig was first appointed to the personal staff of Prime Minister J A Lyons in 1937 and then after his death she remained on the personal staff of his successors, R G Menzies, A W Fadden, J Curtin, J [...]

Tony Abbott reaffirmed his previous promise to remove 12,000 jobs from the public service during his budget reply speech if elected.
That is a lot of unemployed Canberrans.
The recommitment to slash public service positions comes just one night after Treasurer Wayne Swan allayed fears of mass redundancies by announcing that only around 1200 positions would not [...]

Browsing through the Federal Budget papers I came across this item, which left me scratching my head:
‘$300,000 for Ramp Metering on the Tuggeranong Parkway/Cotter Rd interchange’
Like 99.9% of the population, I had no idea what ramp metering was, let alone why the Commonwealth would pay for it or why it was needed at the Cotter [...]

The Australian has the news that former Canberra Raiders great Glenn Lazarus is running for a Queensland Senate seat as part of Clive Palmer’s team:
Billionaire Clive Palmer unveiled his party’s federal senate candidates in Brisbane today.
Lazarus, 47, the only player to win a rugby league premiership with three different clubs, will lead the team.
He played [...]

Both Senator Kate Lundy and Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh appear to be remarkably on-message when it comes to this week’s horror budget for Canberra.
Kate says it will make us stronger, smarter and fairer.
And what do you know, Andrew also says it will make us stronger, smarter and fairer.
So pull out your vocoder and you [...]

It would be a worry if it were not the case, but the Electoral Commission notes the ACT is leading the nation in the rate of electoral enrolment.
95% here compared to the worst placed Northern Territory.

Yesterday Jeremy Hanson made a not overly sincere offer to expand the Ministry from five to six.
Here at RiotACT we noted this would banjo the committee system in the Assembly.
Chief Minister Gallagher has joined that refrain:
“Just one week ago the opposition leader refused to support an increase to the size of the Legislative Assembly, against [...]

First cab off the rank for budget reactions is Jeremy Hanson from the Liberals:
Attacks on public service job cuts, superannuation, reductions on family tax payments, scrapping the baby bonus, introducing paid parking in the parliamentary zone, ongoing efficiency dividends, potential wage squeezes, reductions in office space, and university cuts are all going to affect the [...]

Taking a browse through Budget Paper 2 we find:
For the Hospital:
The Government will contribute $5.0 million to the Australian Capital Territory in 2014-15 towards the development of a dedicated service for children within the Emergency Department of the Canberra Hospital. This will help streamline and better coordinate paediatric emergency and inpatient services for around 15,000 [...]

The Liberal Leader Jeremy Hanson is cunningly offering legislation to expand the Ministry to a sixth Minister.
Before The backbenchers get too excited it’s worth noting Jeremy’s not doing this out of the goodness of his heart:
“Over the past month we have heard the calls from Katy Gallagher on how over-worked her current Ministers are and [...]

Every year the ACT Government promises us that while this year is a deficit, next year they’ll balance the books.
Maybe if all the good little boys and girls were to clap their hands in unison all will be well.
Meanwhile the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is pointing out just how much money will have to repaid in [...]

Member for Brindabella Andrew Wall has sent out a press release stating entitled “WALL FIGHTS FOR CALWELL MASTER PLAN“.
In doing so Wall has managed to stretch the definition of the word ‘fight’ so far that now it resembles a Skywhale boob.
Apparently to Andrew Wall, “fighting for Calwell” means “going to ask the Government if they [...]

The Australian has grim news of just how the Gillard Government is going to plug the gap of its runaway spending.
With the bodies of EL1s and 2s it seems:
Finance Minister Penny Wong said the public service would be asked to find $580 million in savings to help fund the NDIS and Gonski.
The savings, over four [...]

The Canberra Labor MPs are raising a ruckus over Tony Abbott’s plans to balance the books on his paid parental leave scheme by excluding women who work for the public service.
(Presumably because business is being asked to fund the scheme)
The Liberals are scrambling to rein in the costs of their paid parental leave scheme [...]

Chief MInister Gallagher is making compelling arguments for expanding the Legislative Assembly.
The ABC however reports that the Liberals Jeremy Hanson wants more public consultation.
But what if the public is wrong?

The returns of gifts have thrown up some Green tinged donations from Hackett’s Annette Doran.
Lucky old them.

Prime Minister Gillard has announced a referendum’s coming on constitutional recognition of local government.
We are asking the Australian people to support a small but important change to our Constitution so that the existing practice of Federal Government support for local communities is formally recognised in our Constitution.
This will make it easier for the Federales to [...]

ACT Greens Member for Molonglo, Shane Rattenbury, is calling for an inquiry to investigate the the way the ACT deals with vulnerable road users.
“The term ‘vulnerable road users’ refers to people who are most at risk in traffic, and who are the weaker party in a collision. Essentially this means road users who are not [...]

The ACT already has the highest TPI in Australia, and it is blindingly obvious that this system has the interests of the NRMA and the local legal fraternity as it’s primary beneficiaries.
The wretched Smyth has ensured that the local ambulance chasing legal creatures have free reign in screwing the absolute maximum premium from unfortunate third [...]

The Liberals’ Alistair Coe has announced a doomed run at de-railing Draft Variation 306 because he wants poor people to live in darkness.
Shadow Minister for Planning and Infrastructure Alistair Coe will today try to block Draft Variation 306 which has been widely condemned by the building industry. The Government’s changes to the planning rules will [...]

Member for Canberra Gai Brodtmann is planning to take her work out of that silly old-fashioned stationary office, and move into the bright shiny future of the mobile office!
You know, like Johnboy and I have.
Unlike Johnboy and I, Gai has decided to pre-announced the locations she’ll be visiting, so that you can go and watch [...]

Over the past election cycle I have heard just about everything about what is going to happen to the APS, after the inevitable election of an Abbott Federal Government. In recent days Tony has said he will move APS jobs to regional areas, Big Joe has been saying for months that the coalition will cut [...]

Egads!
Every single day I am floored by the mudane useless nonsense that our public servants waste their time writing and sending out, but this release from Eric Abetz has raised the bar in terms of useless dribble.
I put the link to the release in the last sentence, but I don’t recommend you click it. Your [...]

Member for Brindabella Andrew Wall has called upon the Government to crack down on reckless driving in the South of Canberra.
Called upon is code for “I’ve got no answers, but I’m employed to point fingers at the current government and by howdy I’m going to!”
“There are numerous examples of burnouts and other reckless behaviour [...]

For those following the fall from grace of former Canberra heavy John Mackay the recently FOI’d correspondence with the Chief Minister is a must read.
One wonders who else will fall out as things shake down?

I may have made fun of her in the past for claiming that empty petrol stations caused stress in communities and were a source of shame for our elderly.
Still while I find her exaggerations hilarious, I do have to admire to her for sticking to her guns.
“The Government spent so much time in the last [...]

ACT Minister for Disability Joy Burch has revealed the funding details for the National Disability Scheme.
By 2019-20, the ACT Government will provide about $167 million a year to the cost of care and support for people with disability in the ACT through DisabilityCare Australia. This will be 49 per cent of the cost of the [...]

To celebrate the house in the hill’s 25th birthday, a video about Parliament House that is exactly as interesting as Parliament House has been released.
They won’t let me embed it, so here’s a link.
Enjoy!

The ABC’s Antony Green has a piece on electoral boundaries and redistributions, it seems those living on the Canberra/Fraser border could be in from some adjustment:
The ACT’s boundaries were gazetted in December 2005, so a redistribution fell due at the end of 2012. As the House of Representatives was due to expire within twelve months [...]

People seems to be concerned that the Diversity ACT Hub would not be a significant source of rainbows for the residents of Kambah.
To allay your fears, here are some snaps to show those Diversity ACT people are miles ahead of us.
Hopefully, rainbow pedestrian crossings are next on the Diversity agenda.
Welcome to Kambah, LGBTI Community. [...]

The Coalition Shadow Minister for Universities and Research, Senator Brett Mason has kicked up a bit of a stink over the fact that Greens Senate candidate Simon Sheikh brought some pamphlets with him during a guest lecture at the Australian National University.
Rioter c_c™ actually wrote up an article on this, so I’ve included it here:
Word [...]