Page 1888 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 May 1990
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MR DUBY: I am including every member of this Assembly. I think it is insulting and degrading to have these matters discussed in such a way in this Assembly. Mr Speaker, in the arguments that we have heard today in relation to the discussion of this Supply Bill, Opposition members have taken the opportunity to use this time to basically, I suppose, criticise and carp and once again show their lack of economic ability in criticising this Government's economic proposals and the hard, necessary steps it has taken in addressing the terrible situation that the ACT fiscus finds itself in.
I shall not repeat the arguments so very well put by my colleagues Mr Humphries and Mr Collaery, who put forward many facts. None of the Opposition speakers have been able to answer those facts or have queried them, and certainly none have been able to address any issue that was raised about what the Opposition proposed to do anyway. Throughout the debate we have heard many, many times the argument that there really is not a problem, that if you keep saying it long enough and loudly enough there is not a problem, that these are figures invented by the Chief Minister.
Mr Speaker, it is a fact that Commonwealth funding for the ACT has been guaranteed in real terms only for the first two years of self-government. For those who cannot read, that is the period 1989-90 and 1990-91. In June 1991 the Commonwealth ceases its guarantee of funding. For practical purposes, and given the track record of any Commonwealth guarantees anyway, we should not assume that any further financial assistance from the Commonwealth will be forthcoming. As a matter of fact, I can almost guarantee that it will not. I think it is a very sensible and courageous action of this Government to work on that basis and not to live in fantasyland, which the Opposition clearly wishes to do, and rely on Uncle Bob on the hill.
Opposition members also seem to refute the statements of Senator Walsh. They keep saying, "Who is this man?". Well, of course, he was the guru of Labor economics for so many years but, now that he has gone, he is to be despised. The fact is that Senator Walsh stated on 14 December 1989, "It is the belief of the Department of Finance that the level of overfunding has now reached about $100m". Senator Walsh said that. Are you going to deny it? It was said on the advice of the extraordinarily efficient - according to you folk - Federal Department of Finance. It is a simple fact and it cannot be denied.
Mr Berry: You are not even going to bother checking the figures. What a bunch of dills! What a Treasurer! He will not even check the figures.
MR DUBY: Listen to them, chattering like parakeets. The fact is that it has been said and they will not deny it. They say Senator Walsh must be wrong or Senator Walsh did not say it. He did.
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