Page 347 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 1990
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has made and my rebuttal of them, so that we know that at least she has a reasonable approach to the parlous financial condition that this Territory will face after June 1991, if we face an unsympathetic Federal Department of Finance analysis and a Grants Commission that still will go about its business in the way it has in the past. There is no indication that we will be treated on any concessional basis after 1991.
I remind members that it was the Federal Government that did not produce the guaranteed $20m odd only last year. So what faith can we have, whatever the outcome of the Federal election? The fact is that the Grants Commission formulae make it plain that we face this situation. Surely it is better that we seek views, face the issues and resolve them in the proper context in this Assembly and elsewhere now, rather than later.
Why is there something wrong with doing an inventory of assets? That was an election commitment by the Liberal Party and the Residents Rally, and I am sure that it is a reasonable proposition. Mr Speaker, I believe that the Priorities Review Board will add to the knowledge that we have of the Territory, it will set a pace for the future, and it will further implant the Alliance Government in the role it is now assuming in this Territory, which is of stable, capable, reasonable and courageous government which we will need.
MR STEFANIAK (8.38): I, too, rise to commend the Chief Minister and the Government on the establishment of this Priorities Review Board. A number of members last Thursday spoke of the need to increase the board membership, to put various other types of persons on it. I think it was my colleague Mr Duby who said in relation to it that one can go on ad infinitum doing that. There are five members of the board, who bring a broad range of experience and capabilities to their task. I think they have been very well selected and are all very capable people who will approach their task diligently in the interests of the Territory.
A number of members, especially members of the Opposition, have spoken in relation to the number of jobs that will go, using scare tactics - words such as "sackings", "retrenchments", and "people being thrown out of work". I think it has been made quite clear, Mr Speaker, that we are not talking about 3,000 people being sacked; we are talking about a natural attrition and cutting back on 3,000 jobs over a period. This is a typical tactic used by the Australian Labor Party. It was used fairly effectively in Canberra during the Federal elections in July 1987, when it attempted to make a lot of mileage out of the proposition that 3,000 Federal public service jobs would go if a Liberal-National party coalition was elected.
I was a Senate candidate - No. 2 on the Liberal ticket behind Margaret Reid - and I found out on the Thursday that
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