ACT Labor candidate for Brindabella, Mick Gentleman has questioned Zed Seselja’s

commitment to leading an alternative ACT Government after he was unreachable to answer

questions about managing the ACT’s $4 billion budget.

Mr Gentleman said it was disappointing for the people of Canberra that the leader of the

opposition has failed to show up yet this election year – and is clearly not allowing his office to

speak in his continued absence.

“In an important discussion today on local jobs and the economy, no one from the Liberal

party was ‘available’. This simply confirms what we have known for a while – that Zed is still

in bed – and doesn’t trust any other member of the Liberal party to talk about their policies in

public,” Mr Gentleman said.

“Today when our Chief Minister Katy Gallagher was at work and focused on our local,

national and global economic outlook, no member of the Liberal Party could be bothered to

show up.

“Canberrans – and Mr Seselja’s constituents simply deserve better. They deserve to know

how Liberals would manage our economy in uncertain economic times. At the moment the

only Liberal policy on Canberra’s economy is at least 12,000 job cuts. Clearly Mr Seselja is

out of his depth and it is incumbent upon him to demonstrate he has the economic credentials

in these challenging times,” Mr Gentleman said.

But it seems that it is not only the economy that they have fallen silent on.

“We’re now almost at the end of January and the six full-time ACT Liberal MLAs have put out

a combined grand total of five media releases so far this year, with neither the leader nor his

deputy being able to state their position on any issue in this ACT Assembly election year.

“Canberrans, and in particular the residents of Tuggeranong, whom he now claims to want to

represent for the next four years, deserve to know whether the leader of the Liberal Party has

anything to say at all?” Mr Gentleman concluded.

Adam Shirley (666ABC): “We did invite the ACT opposition on to give their take for the

upcoming Budget. No one was available from the opposition to provide comment so we can’t

get a feel for what they’ve got to say about it.”

Jorian Gardner (2CC): “We wanted to speak to Seselja about the $80m worth of cuts to the

public service in the next budget, but 'Zed's in bed'.”