Page 1087 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
documents - discussion papers, if you like - and the Government now has two months to produce a real budget, having regard for the community expressions of interest. I, Mr Speaker, look forward to debating that real budget in its final form in due course.
MR COLLAERY (3.36): Mr Speaker, the consultative process was sorely tempted last night when we heard a comment on television to the effect that the opposition parties had failed to comment on the budget. The fact was that the Chief Minister had enjoined us to join in the consultative process and, for that reason, and for no other reason I suggest, my colleague Mr Kaine and I held off on any sniping on the issue.
Mr Speaker, the Residents Rally is new to politics. It is a community based grouping. We went through the documentation made available to us. If Mr Kaine had difficulty, you can imagine the difficulty we had. The Rally fully endorses Mr Kaine's statement that a lot more information is required before we can understand a number of proposed decisions and allocations.
Mr Speaker, the Rally did take the opportunity during the Supply Bill debate some weeks ago to indicate what sort of appropriations it saw as suitable in a number of budget areas. So, on 27 June, the Rally mentioned, in particular, the need to look at the housing situation and the housing review circumstances. I note, whilst I am still speaking about the subject of consultation, that the Government has decided to go to its draft budget without bringing in the long-promised housing review and in the absence of the Minister responsible for it. I will come back to that, Mr Speaker.
But this steady-as-she-goes budget, this balancing budget, which tends obviously to suit both the temperament and the style of the Chief Minister really contains no correlative statement relating to the tight monetary policies of the Federal Government, which are having a strong impact in this Territory.
There is no statement in the budget in terms of this Government's views on the tight monetary policies of the Federal Treasurer. Also, Mr Speaker, there is a suggestion, even an admission, that this Chief Minister is willing to walk the plank and hand over the $68m that we owe the Federal Government for serviced land, which we have taken on board since self-government and which we have the advantage of selling and taking the receipts from.
If the Federal Government could waive - I think my friend Mr Kaine said "give" - the $48m debt of the Tasmanian Government only a few days ago, why on earth should we hand over that $68m debt to the Federal Government when it still has hold of our $20m-odd in the trust fund?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .