10 November 2008

The Liberal Shadow Cabinet unveiled.

| johnboy
Join the conversation
23

[First filed: November 10, 2008 @ 14:47]

Since election day an eery silence has descended on the Liberals’ website with only Senator Humphries making occasional efforts to fly the flag.

Today the long silence has been broken with news of the new shadow cabinet!

    ““Unlike the Labor party’s regurgitated ministry, with its history of failures, the Liberal team will be one of new energy with a vigour to present a strong, formidable opposition,” Zed said.”

So the responsibilities are:

    — Zed – environment and climate change, planning, including transport planning, housing affordability, human rights, and ageing.

    — Brendan Smyth – shadow treasurer, economic development, business and tourism, emergency services, territory owned corporations, and gaming & racing.

    — Vicki Dunne – shadow attorney general, family & community services, nature conservation and water, industrial relations, women, arts, and manager of opposition business.

    — Jeremy Hanson – health (including mental health), police, corrections, indigenous affairs, and opposition whip.

    — Steve Doszpot – education & training, multicultural affairs, disability, and sport & recreation.

    — Alastair Coe – urban services, transport services, housing, heritage, and youth.

Hanson for the 2012 leadership anyone?

UPDATED: Jon Stanhope has helpfully pointed out that these rather strange arrangements will let Zed take credit for pretty much anything while leaving others to do the hard yakka:

    “Opposition Leader Zed Seselja has dealt himself a light hand in the division of portfolio responsibilities amongst his Liberal team, cementing the reputation he developed last term for being the most work-shy Liberal in the Assembly.

Join the conversation

23
All Comments
  • All Comments
  • Website Comments
LatestOldest

Seriously, if the opposition couldn’t win after Stanhope let Canberra burn down, and again when pretty much three quarters of the population hated him, then they have no chance.

A broad broom needs to be swept through the Liberal party if they are to ever challenge for government in this territory.

Thumper, the election campaign was woeful. I think they rested on the fact that stanhope was so hated in the community. oh, well, now we have labor back, and we will have to live with it for 4 years. The Libs have no-one to blame but themselves. The negative ads did nothing. some sort of policies would have made the difference.

TroyWilliams9:25 am 12 Nov 08

About Jeremy Hanson:
Quick on his feet too: while campaigning in Weston Creek he asked me if I would a brochure: I pointed out that I was wearing a “Cuba” t-shirt with a red star and hinted that my political persuasions might lie elsewhere. His response? “Comrade, would you like a brochure?”

Classic !!!!

Elvis Las Canberras12:26 am 12 Nov 08

What a dreery old prospect an impotent opposition again seems. I liked it better with characters like Mulcahy giving the what for!

Pommy: and who is the Minister for the Yaartz? 🙂

Pommy bastard9:58 am 11 Nov 08

– Zed – environment and climate change, planning, including transport planning, housing affordability, human rights, ageing, pretending to disagree with everything Stanhope says, whilst adopting it as policy.

– Brendan Smyth – shadow treasurer, economic development, business and tourism, emergency services, territory owned corporations, gaming & racing, fetching coffees from the cafe, placing Zeds bets for him at ACTAB.

– Vicki Dunne – shadow attorney general, family & community services, nature conservation and water, industrial relations, women, arts, manager of opposition business, minister for cakes, sticky buns, chocolate, McDonalds and chips.

– Jeremy Hanson – health (including mental health), police, corrections, indigenous affairs, opposition whip, minister for not being on tele much.

– Steve Doszpot – education & training, multicultural affairs, disability, sport & recreation, minister for silly names and dead parrots..

– Alastair Coe – urban services, transport services, housing, heritage, and youth.

barking toad: your comment reminds me of a radio broadcast I heard some years ago in which the leader of the nationalist Hindu party said “Democracy is leadership by a pack of fools”.

Not sure I agree with that because the evidence shows otherwise. Regardless of whether you like Zed, John, or the Greens – they are going to be pushing their own political agendas, not necessarily anything you’ve voted them in for or had a say in. Conversely, in an issues-based democracy (eg Switzerland) the decision on whether to build a new highway or a new commuter railway to a new suburb rests with the people affected (via a referendum). It seems to work very well, and in this day and age, electronic voting seems to make it cheap and easy to do.

disenfranchised3:11 am 11 Nov 08

Given Seselja is the only Liberal MLA with legal qualifications (BA LLB), why wouldn’t he retain the Shadow Attorney-General role? It doesn’t make sense giving that to Dunne. Brendan Smyth has the busiest set of responsibilities (Shadow treasury, economic development, business, & tourism)and will play a key role in estimates/budget tactics. One thing observers at the Assembly point out is that Smyth always puts in. Frankly Stanhope is right. Seselja’s workload is pretty light. As mentioned in other posts Seselja developed a reputation in his first 3 years for taking it easy. He avoided weekend events(a must for any politician in Canberra trying to build support). He is now on the big money (over $200K package). Let’s see whether he has developed a work ethic. If he takes his foot off the pedal, and attempts to coast, the Liberals should move him on. They are at the political crossroads. They should have done a whole lot better in this election. Right now they need an active and strong leader who will build support and their profile across the community. But what does Seselja and his team actually stand for? They cannot run a credible superior economic manager line -that won’t work given they have largely an inexperienced team. They need to start work on 2012 now and not leave it to the last year. To that end, they need to stand for something now. Other than the stamp duty measure what was their other stand out message in the recent election? The fact is they hoped anti Stanhope sentiment would get them over the line. That was policy laziness of the worst kind. Have they actually learnt from the 2008 campaign?

barking toad12:09 am 11 Nov 08

Raddy, giving citizens control is like giving monkeys ballistic missiles

To me, it seems that the portfolios of the opposition party are really quite irrelevant, since they don’t have the reins of power.

On a more fundamental note, I think that the ACT has/had a golden opportunity to implement a genuine system of democracy where citizens can vote on issues rather than on personalities to “represent” them. I like what they do at the cantonal level in Switzerland in terms of putting issues to the people in numerous local referenda instead of letting party politics play any part. Over there, the parliamentarians are only elected to formulate ideas for the good of the canton or country, and then to implement them responsibly. Giving politicians free reign to make decisions on our behalf is like giving a monkey a gun.

Without mixing up the portfolios everytime how will everyone get to change their stationary or come up with new acronyms for departments or waste time/money resources on reshuffling.

It shows that Stanhopeless is already bereft of ideas as he issues a press release to bag the new liberal ministry. What a waste of resources…all those 0s and 1s.

jakez said :

I sort of like laziness in a Chief Minister. The lazier they are, the less they can hurt us.

Hmmmmmmmm …………………..

I sort of like laziness in a Chief Minister. The lazier they are, the less they can hurt us.

The Vicki Dunne appointment is disappointing ….

The total number of portfolios (both sides is a joke – more about pandering to interest groups and trying to get everything in the title).

Maybe we could learn from the US and have “permanent” departments. As a shot – why not Chief Minister and Government Services(Governemnt shared service providers, cabinet internal type stuff) Justice & Emergency Services (for AG’s correctional servies, police and emergency services), Urban Services & Ultilities (Transport, transport services, housing, heritage, water, nature conservation transport planning, housing affordability) Treasury & Economy (Treasury, business, Tourism, industrial relations etc etc) Community & Cultural Services (Diasability, Family, Multicultural, Arts, Indigenous, sport, aging and rec etc etc)- thats 5 portfolios.

This also allows Governments and oppositions to move bits into new departments as per their policy priorities (eg climate change could be either part of Urban Services & Utilities or Treasury and Economy depending on the focus of the Government of the day.). There is also sufficient similarity to get some level of efficiency

Stanhope calling ANYONE lazy is also a joke. Having worked with the last three CM’s – by FAR the least energetic and energised. Also has the personality of a mashed pea.

That seems like a real mishmash of responsibilities. It’s like every shadow minister has to be an expert on pretty much everything.

Eg. Why does Hanson have police and corrections but Smyth have emergency services?

Vicki Dunne as shadow A/G. Ye gods.

plausibly_deniable5:25 pm 10 Nov 08

Yep, I reckon Hanson will be leader before long. He’s personable and has more gravitas than Zed.

Quick on his feet too: while campaigning in Weston Creek he asked me if I would a brochure: I pointed out that I was wearing a “Cuba” t-shirt with a red star and hinted that my political persuasions might lie elsewhere. His response?

“Comrade, would you like a brochure?”

amarooresident5:11 pm 10 Nov 08

Jeez, thetruth, do you get your talking points directly from Zed or is it a group email thing?

It’s not like he had any choice, there are only six of them. I don’t think talent was a consideration.

why do we have so many portfolios anyway??

seems to be more than the fed govt….

Our Beloved Leader is seriously underwhelmed by the the Liberal Shadow Ministry line up. More exactly he is accusing Zed of being a work shy shirker.

Thanks to the electrate I count three new faces on this side.

On the Green/Labor side …………..same old same old. Now I agree they are somewhat limited because the voters did not inject new talent into the ALP. But the factional system only allowed a repeat of the same (with Gallager coming in for the kill on Stanhope by taking Treasury). Hargreaves for goodness sake…… a drunk driver in charge of correctional services. One of the other two air thieves (Porter / Birch) could have done an equally incompetent job. but at least something new.

Holden Caulfield3:21 pm 10 Nov 08

Zed sad, “Unlike the Labor party’s regurgitated ministry, with its history of failures…” and yet they’re still serving up that snotty little toerag Brendan Smyth.

Thanks for the tip Zed, but you’re not fooling anyone.

Gungahlin Al3:16 pm 10 Nov 08

It is becoming commonplace to split climate change and environment/conservation – I don’t agree with it.

The Liberals have found an even more perplexing approach – splitting environment and conservation! Huh?

And housing and housing afforability are two different things. Huh??

And transport planning and transport services are different things. Huh?

I think there is enough to get on top of in the ACT portfolios, without such arbitrary and – well – weird splitting of heavily related topics. And it makes it a nightmare for someone in the community to hook into the right person…

Daily Digest

Want the best Canberra news delivered daily? Every day we package the most popular Riotact stories and send them straight to your inbox. Sign-up now for trusted local news that will never be behind a paywall.

By submitting your email address you are agreeing to Region Group's terms and conditions and privacy policy.