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 [...]

It’s a source of constant wonder how, despite many reorgs to rectify it, so many different arms of the ACT Government can keep bits of their tentacles in so many different pies.
Today the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is asking why all the conservation can’t be done by TAMS.
ACT Shadow Minister for Environment, Brendan Smyth, will move [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is having a poke at the ESD’s less than stellar efforts to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions:
During yesterday’s Annual Report hearings, ACT Shadow Minister for the Environment, Brendan Smyth questioned why the Government’s Directorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development’s greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 40%, when the [...]

Brendan Smyth has the disturbing news that no price is too high to build the Capital Metro:
Smyth: You said there is more work to do before we go to procurement?
Barr: That’s correct.
Smyth: So whatever the numbers turn up its going ahead?
Barr: Well yes, we are committed to this project.
Later, Mr Barr put it beyond [...]

The Liberals’ Zed Seselja has announced his shadow cabinet utilising all seven of his available member with Vicki Dunne in the Speaker’s chair:
“This Shadow Cabinet takes a different approach than we have before, and introduces a range of new portfolios, new ideas and new ways of addressing the needs of the Territory. This new Shadow [...]

It seems a simple enough premise. If people buy land with one lease purpose, at a value to suit that purpose, they get a windfall if the Government agrees to vary the lease purpose to something more lucrative.
Rather than bank the money from having an amenable government it seems manifestly self evident a part of [...]

You’d think with the relationship between the Labor Clubs and Labor Party (throw in the CFMEU and the Tradies group for good measure) the clubs were adequately represented in our political system.
But the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth feels he’s got something to offer the pokie dens:
“The Canberra Liberals understand that the ACT clubs industry is [...]

Yesterday Andrew Barr was celebrating Standard and Poor’s AAA credit rating of the ACT Government.
But the Liberals have found things to like in it too:
In an embarrassing disclosure for ACT Labor today, ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has confirmed that the ACT Labor Government is proposing to phase out duties over a 10 year time [...]

Today being the day to court favour with the hotel owners of Canberra the Liberals have announced what they’re promising to do for them if elected:
If elected, the Canberra Liberals will:
– Commit $2 million to bring the concept of an international standard convention centre to a position where it can attract Commonwealth and/or private sector [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is apeing the insanity of American Republicans and trying to demand a moratorium on tax rises.
We’re a generally prosperous pollity, unhappy with our government services, yet borrowing money.
Yet he wants to declare current tax rates some magical never to be exceeded point of perfection?
So either we:
a) Cut spending
b) Borrow more money.
We [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is taking no joy at all from new CommSec data on the dreaded cost of living:
The latest CommSec economic report confirms that the ACT has the lowest wage growth and the highest increase in consumer prices in the country, showing that Canberra is becoming an even more expensive place to [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth has swooped on new ABS stats like a seagull upon a chip to show we really are highly taxed:
Canberrans pay more in tax than anywhere else in the country, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released today. ACT Shadow Treasurer Brendan Smyth said this is a shocking burden placed on [...]

The Liberals Brendan Smyth is laying the blame for the decline of tourism to the ACT at the feet of Tourism Minister Andrew Barr.
Tourism everywhere in this country is in trouble due to the sky high Australian dollar.
Frankly as a nation I’d rather our children earn a crust building railways to carry iron ore trains [...]

The Liberals’s Zed Seselja and Brendan Smyth are proudly announcing they’ve got the Assembly on board for their Financial Management (Cost of Living) Amendment Bill 2012:
ACT Deputy Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth, who introduced the Bill, said it is disappointing it took legislation for the government to take notice of the cost of living problems they’ve [...]

The Canberra Liberals have sent forth the official announcement of their candidates for the October election, written with Leader Zed Seselja as the speaker:
“In Brindabella, Brendan Smyth and I will be very well supported by Tharwa community hero Val Jeffrey, small businessman Andrew Wall, and Community sector CEO Nicole Lawder.
“In Ginninderra, Alistair Coe and Vicki [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is raising a ruckus about the vexed issue of the Compulsory Third Party (CTP) Insurance Scheme:
“Despite numerous claims from the ACT Government that the review of the CTP scheme would be completed, as required by legislation by early January 2012, the Government still has not delivered its report to the Assembly,” [...]

Had a chat with a friend with very close ties to the ACT Liberals, I guess what the media would refer to as a ‘senior Liberal source’, who told me that Mr Seselja is in some serious trouble and has lost the support of his fellow Liberal MLA’s.  However, apparently all is not lost as there [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is taking a great deal of pleasure in the shift of emphasis for the Enlighten festival:
In another embarrassing blow to the ACT Labor Government’s attempt to create a major new autumn event, the much-vaunted ‘Enlighten’ has now been downgraded in the latest promotional materials to a ‘part of’ and ‘highlight of’ [...]

When the Liberals Brendan Smyth was was blathering in the Canberra Times this morning “new laws, agreed in principal by the Assembly” I looked to see if a coherent statement had been issued by his party and there is no such things.
Laws are not “agreed in principal”. Bills are introduced, and Acts are passed.
But Brendan’s [...]

With no apparent trace of irony the local Liberals’ Brendan Smyth taking to the barricades to protest cuts to the public service:
The Canberra Liberals will today call on ACT Labor to stand up for the Canberra community and publicly denounce Federal Labor’s plan to sack Commonwealth public servants. ACT Shadow Treasurer Brendan Smyth said Katy [...]

Brendan Smyth is turning the knife on the Gallagher government as planned GST money goes missing:
In another blow from the Federal Government’s mid-year budget, the ACT has lost a further $10.3 million in GST revenue, ACT Shadow Treasurer Brendan Smyth said today.
“Since the last ACT Budget in May, this represents a total loss of [...]

Following on from yesterday’s announcement of new fire and ambulance stations the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth has expressed some disappointment in the scope of the plans:
“In keeping with the debacle that was the delivery of the GDE, the Busway to Belconnen, the new ESA headquarters and the Alexander Maconochie Centre, Mr Corbell has continued his poor [...]

I was no doubt not alone in being a little confused by Noel Towell’s story in the Canberra Times this morning on Brendan Smyth’s efforts to disallow the appointment of the Auditor-General Maxine Cooper.
There some hints that Noel had little understanding of disallowance. Putting the word disallow in inverted commas was one. Describing a fundamental [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is sharing his concern that the Property Council is surveying itself to find they’d like to pay less tax.
The findings show that dwindling confidence in the ACT property sector and wider economy is due to a range of local factors, including:
– The planning system;
– general business conditions;
– the high level of [...]

Earlier this month it was suggested that Calwell is full of jerks.
Today it’s the centre of controversy in the Legislate Assembly.
The Greens have celebrated their amendment of a Liberal motion surrounding the suburb:
“Today the Canberra Liberals presented a motion to the Assembly to prevent the development of much needed aged care facilities for [...]

Simon Corbell has announced the release of a review into all the ways the emergency alert system went wrong during the Mitchell Fire.
What strikes me as particularly clear is that anyone with a basic knowledge of primary school maths and the wit to apply it could have predicted these limitations and yet it was never [...]

A couple of days ago the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth put out a media release saying a Select Committee of the Legislative Assembly would be investigating “improper conduct” by Chief Minister Gallagher over the manner of her appointment of the new Auditor-General.
“The appointment of the Auditor General is one of the most important statutory roles in [...]

The Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is using a new report on flat retail sales in the ACT to remind us that Katy Gallagher recommends we cancel Foxtel if times are tough:
“It is clear that Canberra consumers continue to face increasing pressures on their cost of living as a consequence of the decisions of ACT Labor.
“Increases in [...]

Liberal Brendan Smyth is having a mighty vent after having been used as a rubber stamp by Katy Gallagher:
The Standing Committee on Public Accounts has a formal role in the appointment process of the ACT Auditor-General, and the Chief Minister cannot independently appoint a candidate, Mr Smyth said.
Despite this, I first became aware the ACT [...]

The Canberra Liberals’ Brendan Smyth has turned up in a profile in the Irish Echo in which he professes his love of Irishness, Cardinal Mannix, and Black Bush.
So there you go.

Late yesterday (31 May) our robots informed us of a flurry of activity on the Canberra Liberals’ website between 4.40pm and 5pm.
We wondered at the time why, if it was suddenly newsworthy that Brendan Smyth was opening a “wok it up” franchise in Erindale, what exactly he’d been doing with his time for the last [...]

The Liberals Brendan Smyth is furious with the Greens for greenlighting the Ascension of Katy Gallagher to the Stanhopian throne:
“This is simply the latest action taken by a Greens Party that makes a lie of their so called ‘third party insurance.’ They are the far left branch of the Labor Party, no matter how little [...]