Page 2960 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (12.16): I rise in this debate to defend not only my actions but the actions of the Government with respect to the issues that have been raised by the Opposition. I suspect that from time to time we will face motions of this kind from those opposite. It is - - -
Mr Wood: Duty.
MR HUMPHRIES: To some extent, yes, it is their duty to see that issues that they see as important are raised and that Ministers are condemned, from time to time appropriately. That is the job of oppositions. In fact, I should put on the record that the frequency with which such motions have come forward in this place is vastly less than the frequency with which they occur in the Federal Parliament. So I think we have to acknowledge that there is a certain judiciousness on both sides of the chamber, because both of us have exercised that care and caution about the use of such things.
So I think we can say with great certainty that the Government takes this matter very seriously. That is not to say that we believe in the circumstances that we can accept censure - that I can accept censure - for the actions of the Government to date, because there is always a vast gulf between oppositions and governments when it comes to making decisions that will affect, in particular, the capacity of the Territory as a jurisdiction to deliver services to its people.
That is the crux of the decisions that the Government has made. It is a desire to ensure that in this year and next year, right up to the next election, we as a Government are able to provide services to the people of the ACT at a satisfactory level, and there is also the question whether we are able to provide, as a jurisdiction - whether we are in government or someone else is in government - into the coming decade and the coming century, the same quality of service to the people of Canberra.
We have acted as we have acted because we believe it is essential to make changes in the way in which the services to the Territory are provided in order to ensure that those services continue. We do not believe that inaction is a responsible course of action in the present circumstances. I know that those opposite have a fundamentally different view of the nature of the problems facing the Territory.
They have, for example, consistently pooh-poohed the suggestion that the magnitude of our problem is to the extent of $100m, and they may be right; the problem may be of a different dimension. But there can be no doubt that the problem is, notwithstanding that, of quite enormous dimensions. I consider that, in a budget of only approximately $1 billion, a problem amounting to tens of millions of dollars is not one that can be dealt with at
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