The Greens have now released their allocations of portfolio responsibilities:
Meredith Hunter MLA – Parliamentary Convenor
– Treasury
– Education & Training
– Community Services
– Women
– Children & Young People
Shane Rattenbury MLA – Speaker
– Attorney General
– Environment, Climate Change & Water
– Energy
– Police & Emergency Services
– Tourism, Sport & Recreation
Amanda Bresnan MLA – Whip
– Health
– Transport
– Disability & Housing
– Ageing
– Multicultural Affairs
– IR
– Corrections
Caroline Le Couteur MLA
– Planning
– Territory & Municipal Services
– Business & Economic Development
– Indigenous Affairs
– Arts & Heritage
That’s a pretty even split, with everyone getting at least one big ticket portfolio.
They claimed that they went in on a platform of reform – but nowhere is that to be seen, except perhaps in Shane with AG.
They also said the Greens do things differently, but here is a replica Lab/Lib party.
Same old, same old, different colour.
On the other hand, at least they have heritage, TaMS and planning together. That could avoid another Tharwa Bridge debacle, if only hey took some power and responsibility.
How’s Shane going to manage these responsibilities within the Assembly?
Will he pass notes for his colleagues to aske questions and raise issues?
Or are all the debates between the Govt and the Greens going to happen beforehand?
The latter. That’s how and why the agreement was set up. It’s the main reason I’m really annoyed about it all. It’s power sharing, not transparency.
So the Greens just sit there and vote with the government for the next four years because they’ll have already had the negotiation earlier in the back room??
Well, FFS, that sucks!
On WIN News tonight, Ratbat said he would step out of the chair to introduce legislation and generally do his thing as an MLA – presumably that means he will vacate whenever issues related to his portfolios come up.
Meredith should speak on all issues. She has a great bod for TV.
bigred said :
And of course physical appearance is the most important attribute for political representatives. Especially women.
This looks like a pretty good assignment of portfolios to me. They’ve generally been assigned to the MLA who has the most experience in each area in their pre-politics community advocacy roles. The Greens will be good at the job of injecting sensibility into proposed legislation – they’ve come from a community advocacy background so they should have an understanding of the issues and community views.
They also said the Greens do things differently, but here is a replica Lab/Lib party.
what differences are we supposed to detect merely from noting which person will look to which portfolio issue?? you confuse me, housebound – mebbe ya oughta get out more..?
i understand the deputy speaker will preside when shane wants to enter the fray – seems a reasonable set up to me; allows all the greens to speak to their portfolio roles and allow them to affect the reforms to the running of parliament: win-win?
The whole speaker thing is a bit weird in our small govt.
In a big party it means one person is effectively out of the main game – or out of public debate anyway – Wayne Berry seemed to disappear once he was the speaker. I can’t understand why anyone wants to do it – unless they have no profile or ministry already.
It will be interesting to see if Shane can make this work.