Page 1160 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
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Federal Government should make to the ACT to be consistent with its funding promise before self-government", rather than make rash accusations about the Federal Government, Ms Follett has said that one of her achievements in the first hundred days of her government has been to ensure access to Commonwealth funding of $22.7m which the ACT would not otherwise have received. In other words, Mr Deputy Speaker, she has realised that this money was unobtainable before and that now, because it is in trust, it is actually more obtainable than it would have been. It is a wonderful pas de deux on the political stage, and I think she deserves congratulations for it.
Mr Duby: A pas de what?
MR HUMPHRIES: A pas de deux. It is a ballet term, Mr Duby. Obviously you did not attend the New Zealand Ballet performance the other night. Let us look at other achievements of this wonderful Chief Minister. For first home owners $30m is slashed from the Federal Government's first homeowners scheme, but $15m comes back as assistance for mortgage relief. Rather than complain about this, our Chief Minister bravely has said what a wonderful thing it is that we are getting a quarter of a million dollars in the ACT's coffers to make up for that $30m which has been cut across Australia, and presumably a commensurate amount was cut from the ACT.
Gowrie Hostel is being sold, with not a cent coming to the ACT. I must say that here at this point perhaps the Chief Minister's guard slips a little. I sense a little grinding of teeth behind the smile on this occasion. She probably is not too happy with this decision but, rather than make much of it, she has glossed over that fairly quickly.
There is the funding shortfall - a funding shortfall of $85m identified before the last election by the Commonwealth Grants Commission. The Chief Minister, before the election, denied that such a shortfall existed. She denied there would be any funding shortfall but now, sweetly, serenely, she has come to the conclusion, as Mr Kaine has pointed out, that there will be a shortfall of that amount. It has been identified after all, but, oh well, we are all friends around here; we can work it out somehow!
I think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Chief Minister deserves congratulations for sporting a black eye in her brave fashion and letting on to no account of her pain in this process. I think that she could certainly teach Mrs Ros Kelly a lesson or two. Mrs Kelly has not been quite so gracious in the face of pain as our Chief Minister. Mrs Kelly has responded to the news by saying that the National Museum of Australia is now a luxury and will not be available to the citizens of the ACT, and indeed to the whole of Australia, in the near future. Despite earlier assertions in the media, I seem to recall that over many years the Museum of Australia was a vitally important thing to the people of the ACT, but now Mrs Kelly says that she
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