Page 33 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 May 1989
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Press release
Mr Keating (Commonwealth Treasurer), 18 May 1989
Mr Staples (Commonwealth Minister for Housing and Aged Care), 18 May 1989.
Motion (by Mr Whalan) proposed:
That the Assembly take note of the papers.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.12): I would like to make some comments on what the Minister has told us in connection with this matter. I refer back to a few minutes ago when I asked a specific question about this matter, and that was, for example, whether or not the Commonwealth Treasurer, or perhaps even the Federal Minister for Finance, retained a veto on whether this money could be made available to us.
The question was not answered then and the Chief Minister said that she would deal with the matter at this particular time. I submit, Mr Speaker, that that question has not been responded to. The Chief Minister claims that the Commonwealth has met its commitment to maintain the funding to the ACT Government in real terms while at the same time it has locked $22.7m of that money in a trust fund.
Now the Chief Minister has told us that following negotiations with the Commonwealth for certain specific purposes this money may or may not be made available. She also says that access to the additional funding being held in trust will enable the ACT Government to do certain things, but there is nowhere in that statement an assurance that the Treasurer or the Finance Minister at the Commonwealth level has not retained a power of veto. No matter what negotiations we enter into, no matter what arguments we put forward, no matter how strong our case, there is no guarantee that either of those officers will agree in the end to make this money available to us.
Despite the fact that I raised the question in question time and that the Minister has given us these assurances, which I submit are carefully worded as they do not answer the question specifically, I am still concerned that in practical terms the Commonwealth has reneged on its promise. It has reneged on its undertaking that it will maintain its expenditures in the Territory in real terms at the 1987-88 level. When we go and ask for some of this money for any specified purpose, will it be granted? Indeed we will then, and only then, know that the Chief Minister's statement that the Commonwealth has met its obligation is not true.
I do not know whether the Chief Minister wishes to make any supplementary comments on what she has said, but I am by no means satisfied that we have got the deal that we were promised. I am by no means satisfied that the Commonwealth has even gone close to honouring its commitment to this Territory in this particular matter.
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