Page 1886 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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Mr Berry: The behaviour of the rabble opposite is unforgivable and it is about time they were pulled into gear.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Please settle down.
MR CONNOLLY: Government members are demonstrating my point far better than I could hope to in any debate by their continued infantile performances. "Scrubbers", "stupidity", "drongos" - these are the remarks from senior Government front benchers directed to the Opposition. Today we have heard the last desperate gasp of the conservative. Yesterday, in a desperate attempt to justify what was or was not a criminal charge, we saw recourse to a 1957 High Court judgment and today we are back to the 1950s and the Government attack on the Opposition - "Marxists, socialists, Soviets". What a pathetic performance! Please, Mr Collaery, continue these remarks for the next 18 months into an election campaign. We will be delighted if that is the level of contribution that we will get from the Government.
The Chief Minister, who I would have thought should stand somewhat above these low-level remarks, enters into the fray. Yesterday afternoon - I was going to raise this by way of matter of personal explanation, but I prefer to do it now and hope to hear his response - he engaged in some rather frantic insults directed at me concerning gatecrashing some function. Now, Mr Kaine, explain what you were talking about. Try to justify it. I think it was very pathetic. Put it on record. You will find, Mr Kaine, that it is merely a trashy schoolyard insult and I think that that is appalling. You accused me yesterday, as I recorded it, of gatecrashing some function. Explain to me and explain to the citizens of Canberra what you meant by that, because you will find that you cannot.
They were my comments on the style of debate in this chamber. Let me return to the substance. Again, we were attacked today. It was said that the Opposition was being hypocritical because we had consistently criticised the Government for attempting to balance the budget by looking only at the expenditure side and not at the revenue side. Our leader was attacked for these remarks. What an extraordinary conclusion for Labor to come to, to suggest that the Government was committed to the expenditure side and not the revenue side.
Mr Kaine's 10-point budget strategy for the ACT of last year was rather George Bush-like in its certainty. No increases in taxes was the bottom line of the Liberal Party's budgetary policy for self-government: "There will be no increases in taxes under our strategy. That is our absolute commitment and it is on that basis that we have worked out our budget strategy". So we have a bottom line and an absolute commitment not to increase taxes.
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