Page 2284 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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The Chief Minister peddles a simplistic argument about finances, based on a throwaway line from somebody else in another parliament - it concerns figures he has not even bothered to check. The Chief Minister has only read half of the Grants Commission report, it seems - the half that talks about cutting services. Mr Kaine and his Government have talked down investment in this city. Mr Kaine has scared off anyone who might have wanted to invest here with his gloom-and-doom talk. This city depends on a change in this Government. It will happen sooner or later. It should happen sooner, and this is why we support the motion of no confidence.
All this Government has had to do is to get out there and look at alternative ways to raise revenue and bring the ACT into line with other States, but of course they would have found that some of their business mates would have squealed loudly about that. This is not the Liberal way, and we know, now that the Residents Rally party has dropped onside with them, that the Liberal way is now the Residents Rally party way. This is the way it goes and this is what this whole Government is about. The formation of it is based on contradiction and hypocrisy.
This is the Chief Minister who heaped scorn on the Follett Government for the Business Franchise ("X" Videos) Bill, a Bill that would have raised millions. He voted against it. When his Government introduced a similar Bill, they supported it. The interesting thing about it is that, despite the divisions that had occurred in the Government previously, they all supported it.
Ms Follett. That was a conscience vote.
MR BERRY: Well, it is a different sort of conscience. They all supported it, and I am very pleased to say that the Labor Party was able to ensure that they were all netted into supporting it, because they could not rely on us to help them. They demonstrated their hypocrisy. The Labor Party by some chance was not in the house, but it demonstrated the hypocrisy of those opposite because they were all netted in.
Mr Speaker, there have been all sorts of publicly demonstrated hypocrisy from this Government which is deserving of a result that ends up in the demise of this Chief Minister. I mention Mr Collaery's condemnation of the Follett Government when he supported the first motion of no confidence against the Chief Minister - the hypocrisy that follows from that, in particular in relation to planning issues. We have still not got planning legislation before this Assembly, and it was the members of this Government opposite that complained loudest when, after four months, the Labor Party had at least moved some way to doing something about it. They have still done nothing. It is still not out. It is still not a piece of law in this Territory.
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