Page 222 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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search of work - that is 3,000 more Canberra families broken while the young people have to leave town. Unemployment amongst young people in Canberra is already extremely high, especially when looked at compared with the national rate.
Mr Kaine apparently wants to see it become even worse and those are simply the direct effects. I would ask Mr Kaine, what about all the small business people, the mechanics, the hairdressers, the small shopkeepers, and so on, who depend upon the public servants in this town for their livelihood? They will suffer also. Mr Kaine, your policies will decimate the ACT economy, will destroy the lifestyle of the people of Canberra, because you are attacking the very heart of that economy. Is your ideology worth that? My Government - when we were in Government here - recognised the economic realities that face the ACT, and we recognised that we face difficult times. Of course we do. But we also recognised the important role that public enterprise plays in supporting the ACT economy.
So, Mr Speaker, I believe that now is not the time for precipitate action, the action that Mr Kaine is proposing in the ACT. What we do need is a forward and balanced approach to economic and financial policy, the approach, indeed, that this Government was taking while we were in office. This was the approach that was embodied in our budget which was passed by this Assembly; although, as I have said before, a number of the significant tax or revenue raising measures in that budget have now been passed up by Mr Kaine. He thinks he can get the money elsewhere by sacking public servants.
What we need is an approach designed to maintain Canberra the way it is, and that includes our economic base which, as I have said, the public sector plays an enormous role in. We do not need the kind of ideological extremism that Mr Kaine is indulging in at the present. He has been led on by his extremely conservative colleagues in his coalition under the direct guidance, I believe, of Mr Greiner in New South Wales.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (3.38): Ms Follett has introduced her motion by exhibiting once again her complete failure to grasp the realities of today's world, particularly as they relate to Canberra. She does not want to hear this. She has said her piece, so she is now going to leave. She has no compunction whatsoever about distorting facts, misrepresenting issues and putting forward her own extreme solutions on a hypothetical basis. She accuses me of scaremongering. It is absolutely hilarious.
I noted with great interest that the former members of the Labor Executive showed absolutely no enthusiasm whatsoever for discussion on major matters affecting the budget this morning. For most of the debate not one of them was even in the house, not one. And the contributions, such as they
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