Page 2337 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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MR SPEAKER: All members are allowed to speak to an amendment twice. Please proceed, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, the extension of time was in relation to the 15 minutes. I would be entitled to seven and a half minutes, but I can come back for another 10 later. Mr Speaker, I will not be too long. The issue is about parties who have deserted their policies, abandoned the people of Canberra and seek to impose an unnecessary cost on taxpayers in this Territory. The first and most prominent of those is the Liberal Party guided by Mr Kaine. They, as I have said, Mr Speaker, made it clear to the people of Canberra that there was no need for a rate increase. Now the "Liberal" Government opposite - and I say that advisedly because that has become a clear position - has adopted those Liberal philosophies and it is going to be the ordinary working people who pay for the economic madness that is being followed by these people.
This rate increase is unnecessary. There has been no justification for it placed before this house. There are no figures before this house which suggest that a certain number of dollars are required to fund certain obligations of the Government - I suggest, because the Government probably has not checked its figures, which is something that is repeatedly the case with this Government. This occurred in the education debate where the Minister responsible, Mr Humphries, was found out this morning on ABC radio. I wonder whether he has bothered to study the figures since that expose of his own inadequacies and whether those costings will become available for the people of the ACT to scrutinise. On the basis of the performance of the Save Our Schools group, they will probably batter him around the head with it.
Mr Duby: To save ourselves we will ask for a rate increase.
MR BERRY: The no self-government phoney opposite gets a bit edgy about this because he knows that there are no principles where he is coming from, and he would not have a conscience in relation to the imposition of this tax because he has nothing upon which to base such a conscience.
Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; I think Mr Berry referred to Mr Duby as a phoney. I think he should be asked to withdraw that.
MR BERRY: The evidence is pretty strong.
MR SPEAKER: I believe that is unparliamentary. Please withdraw it, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: I withdraw it if it offends the Speaker - and see how quickly I responded to your ruling, Mr Speaker. Mr Kaine could learn a little bit from that. Mr Speaker, the issue is about misleading the electorate. The electorate
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