Page 2275 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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credibility, or is a hypocrite of any kind. I reject it totally. I have said this before in this house and I will repeat it again: in my opinion, there is no man of higher standing - or no woman, for that matter - than the current Chief Minister, Trevor Kaine. Indeed, I think the Chief Minister's actions indicate the reverse of what this censure motion is trying to imply. Since taking the reigns of office, the Chief Minister has worked constantly to ensure that the standard of living, the lifestyle, of people in the ACT is maintained at the high level that we would like to see.
I ask you: what integrity could we expect in a Chief Minister who is prepared to raise charges for hard economic reasons? I know the Government has done this in relation to rates, for example. I shall stick with rates as a good example, because they have risen substantially. They have risen substantially because they are required to rise substantially, the reason being that there is a genuine economic need to do so. What level of integrity would people expect to see in a Chief Minister who, while slugging the average man and woman in the street with the higher charges which unfortunately are required, let a revenue measure that was there at his fingertips go untapped? I am sure that people would say that someone who did that would certainly have no integrity and would have no credibility.
To go back to Mr Stevenson's speech, the whole issue is that originally, back in November - I believe that was the date - when the proposal to tax X-rated videos first appeared, the Chief Minister, acting then as leader of the Liberal Party, opposed such a measure. Mr Stevenson quite rightly quoted the Chief Minister and other members who were currently on this side of the Assembly as saying that they were opposed to such a concept, as my colleague Mr Collaery has pointed out.
Those comments were made in the Chief Minister's capacity then as leader of a particular party in the Assembly. Comments made by Mr Jensen, Dr Kinloch and Mr Collaery referred to their feelings as members of the Residents Rally party. Comments made by me, Ms Maher and Mr Prowse reflected our views as members, at that time, of the No Self Government Party. Given the change of circumstances which has occurred since then, I think it indicates that the Chief Minister is in a new role as leader of an Alliance government - not a Liberal government, not a Liberal-Rally coalition, not a coalition of anything, but a government which I feel has implemented policies which are different from those of all three groups. These policies in many ways represent better compromises and better services to the community than did those of the individual parties.
In this case I can see no signs of hypocrisy whatsoever or double standards of any kind. As I have said, Mr Deputy Speaker, Mr Kaine is the leader of an Alliance government,
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