Page 227 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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of financial profligacy inherited from Labor - both Commonwealth and Labor - to one of stable balanced budgets.
MR WOOD (3.50): In two or three months the new Government has said quite a deal about the economy and the steps it will take. It is yet to go into great detail about the specifics. The Chief Minister's first comment on this was in a speech on 7 December last year when he had quite a few statements to make. The major factor, I suppose, indicating the current financial policy, is its adherence to the budget that was passed in this house last year, passed with the approval, in general terms at least, of all members of the Assembly.
Mr Kaine further elaborated his policy on an ABC radio interview. Later he announced the Priorities Review Board. He has put out a printed policy and he has made some statements today. We are yet to face an economic statement, so the relationship of that with the Priorities Review Board is not known. Let us note that the ALP accepts all the outcomes of the budget that it put through here last year. Let us note also that that budget was passed with the general approval of the Assembly.
A member: Except for $3m.
MR WOOD: There have been some changes, certainly. In his speech in this chamber in December, the Chief Minister plagiarised a line from a more noted politician. That noted politician said, earlier in this century, "We propose operating the Territory on economic and efficient lines". That was O'Malley in 1910. I do not think there is a politician alive who has not said, at some stage, something of that nature. I know the ALP spoke about a no-frills administration and I believe we followed that policy, but the point I make is that simply saying a policy does not mean a great deal.
Mr Kaine: That was true in your case, Bill; it will not be in ours.
MR WOOD: You intend to achieve your policy through the Priorities Review Board but we can already sense the outcomes. In an interjection earlier today Mr Humphries said, as near as I can recall his words, that we would all have to bear the hardship that the decisions cause. The agenda for the Priorities Review Board is already determined. I know Mr Kaine said in his speech a little while ago that Ms Follett was scaremongering, but he has not taken the opportunity in these last 15 minutes to repudiate the statement he made on ABC radio, that 3,000 jobs would go over five years. I was sitting here rather expecting he would do that.
The Priorities Review Board now has the task to determine where those 3,000 jobs will be. I do not think that is a particularly good way to proceed - that you give a board a target of 3,000 and tell them to find out how and where
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