Page 195 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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it when we may have a slight digression on this side. It seems to me that there was a lot of huffing and puffing on the part of the previous Government about how it was going to cope with the well-acknowledged problem of the budget for the ACT.
It may recall that the last time a territory was granted self-government the new government was given five years to establish a firm financial base. However, in this case the hard-hearted Senator Walsh, an acknowledged denigrator of Canberra and its residents - and he does it often and regularly about the people of the ACT - seems to have difficulty coming to the ACT. If he has that problem, why the heck did he get himself elected in the first place? Why does he not stay in the State from which he comes and not come to Canberra and denigrate the people of the ACT and their Government?
He is a member of a Federal Labor Government which, we recall - and I will continue to remind the Assembly of this - was advised for a number of years by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the past Deputy Chief Minister, who sits across the table from us. It was he who was advising the Federal Labor Government at the time about what should take place in the ACT.
I want to refer briefly to a matter that was raised about the financial aspects of the ACT by the Craig report, the report of the Task Force on Implementation of ACT Self Government which was chaired by an acknowledged and very strong member of the public service who has considerable credibility in this area. In the report of May 1984, on page 8 at paragraph 37, Mr Craig recommended that:
The Commonwealth Government undertake to guarantee a level of funding to the ACT Government which enables it to maintain standards of services at their existing level for up to two years and at an agreed level for a further three years. For the latter three years of this stabilising period, the level of any additional assistance grant be agreed between Governments.
At the time that was the issue and the concern that was raised by experts like Mr Craig and put forward to the Federal government of the day, which was advised by the gentleman who is just leaving the chamber now - Mr Whalan. It seems to me that as soon as they took over, as soon as the ACT was given its first budget, we were $22m down the drain like a flash. It was gone, never to be seen again, except after some hard negotiation. We were being treated with utter contempt by the Federal Labor Government, which was advised by Senator Walsh to whom I have already referred.
The Chief Minister's ministerial statement on the establishment of the Priorities Review Board referred to the development of a strategy as a matter of urgency for
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