The Canberra Liberals' Mark Parton has launched a wide-ranging verbal attack on the ACT government's glossy monthly newsletter, calling for the environmentally damaging "propaganda" funded by taxpayers to be wound back.
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But the government defended the Our CBR newsletter, saying it was well-read by older members of the community and printed on paper sourced from sustainably managed forests.
Mr Parton said the government was "the single most arrogantly hypocritical government in the history of this nation", prompting loud interjections from the government benches.
"How dare you force people to eat their soup with a shallow bamboo spoon while at the same time rolling out millions upon millions of pages of glossy full-colour propaganda?" Mr Parton said of the government in a heated debate in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Parton moved a motion calling for the monthly Our CBR government newsletter to be cut back to a quarterly publication, declaring thousands of trees could be saved if the government stopped printing so much of the material.
"The reason this government wants to cling on to the Our CBR newsletter in this form is this is campaign material which isn't included in the expenditure cap in an election year and it's political propaganda which is paid for entirely by the taxpayer. ... I can sort of understand why they want to hang on to it," he said.
"Every time you get a copy of the glossy Communist Times in your letter box, think about your rates - think about how much your rates have gone up - think about who paid for it, think about the damage that's been done to the environment as a consequence of it and make it known to the government that you do not care for this rubbish."
Mr Parton also offered an analysis of the newsletter's contents to the Assembly, pointing out some of the recent articles in a copy of the Tuggeranong edition he had received that he called "comedy gold". He criticised an article saying "light rail is coming" with no timeline or further information for southside residents.
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"I would say maybe leave that article in the newsletter for the next 150-odd months, because it will still be current. But that's a whole other story," he said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr awarded Mr Parton a score of 6/10 for his comedy, 7/10 for the delivery and said Mr Parton had "dialled it up to 11 on the hyperbole", pointing out Mr Parton's own recent use of printed political material.
"There may come a time in the future, probably after I'm dead, that everyone younger than me will no longer want printed material. But it is still clearly the case that the more than 100,000 Canberrans who are older than me do want printed material," Mr Barr said during the debate, which he described as "absurd" and "degenerating into ... undergraduate behaviour".
Mr Barr also said the Communist Party might be "somewhat offended" by any suggestion the Our CBR newsletter was a Communist newsletter.
The Assembly passed an amended motion, moved by Mr Barr, which committed the government to returning to using 100 per cent recycled paper stock for the newsletter, highlighting its online availability and continuing to survey the community to track the way people preferred to receive government information.
"Like many sectors, the war in Ukraine has impacted on supply lines. Since June of this year, the newsletter has been printed on paper stock sourced from sustainably managed forests. This is not a permanent solution and ... the government will continue to explore a return to 100 per cent recycled paper when it becomes available again," Mr Barr said.
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