Page 2376 - Week 11 - Thursday, 2 November 1989
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cut areas where we feel the expenditure may not be justified.
Mr Jensen mentioned that I and Ms Maher have put in a dissenting report from the rest of the committee in relation to one item, and that is the iniquitous costs of asbestos removal. I feel it behoves me at this stage to just outline, I suppose, why we have dissented from the rest of the committee.
We feel, as I said, that this budget is a statement of government policy, and the Government's policy has been made loud and clear in this regard. Their negotiating position, their stated position, is that costs of asbestos removal should be borne 70 per cent by the Federal Government and 30 per cent by the territorial Government.
Now, in this financial year we found out that the total amount of money spent on asbestos removal is $16.3m, of which the Federal Government is contributing $5.2m, and that the ACT Government is coming up to the tune of $11.1m. That is not a 70-30 split, and if the Government's position is that expenditure should be done on a 70-30 basis I say, and I think it is quite logical, that we should ask, if there is going to be $16.3m worth of expenditure this year on asbestos, that the ACT Government contribute only 30 per cent of that. This is in the order of $4.8m, or close on $5m. Therefore, we will be recommending that expenditure in that area be reduced by $6.2m and that the Commonwealth Government be forced to make up the shortfall.
I think it is only fair to put the acid on the Government. That is their position. That is our recommendation in that regard. We note that last year there was expenditure of $4.1m on asbestos removal and not one penny of it, on my understanding, has come from the Commonwealth Government.
I dare say that this matter will be debated at much greater length when the budget comes down and we go through the Appropriation Bill. But on that point, Mr Speaker, I commend the report to the Government, and I certainly hope that it takes steps to implement all of the recommendations which the committee has proposed. I suppose it should be pointed out that there is no reason why all of the recommendations will not be implemented, because the simple fact of the matter is that we have a 17-member Assembly and there are 11 committee members who have made recommendations in this regard. Eleven out of 17 sounds to me like a majority.
Rather than hoping that the Government takes up these recommendations, I am looking forward to the day when the Government does take up these recommendations. It is as simple as that. It is the clear will of the Assembly that those recommendations be implemented. On that note I shall leave debate until a later time, Mr Speaker.
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