Page 2995 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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not prepared to face the flak that he should face over that. It is the Residents Rally tail that is wagging the Liberal dog. I think that the motion that is before us today demonstrates the real priority of this Government, and that is to put your snouts in the trough while you can. You know you have a limited time, as Mr Collaery said, and you are determined to get absolutely everything that you can out of it. If anybody doubts that, you should bear in mind Mr Berry's interjection by way of a joke yesterday, "Why didn't you go for all 10 ministries?", to which Mr Duby responded, not by way of a joke, "That's what I said". I think that says it all - jobs for everyone.
The real reason for this motion is to give even more lurks and perks to the people opposite in the 16 or so months that remain to them in government. But I think it has to be said, Mr Speaker, that they are treating the Government of the ACT as a game in which they win all the prizes. Their priorities are becoming increasingly clear. They are quite happy to close schools, close hospitals, cut services, hike up the rates and taxes in an unbelievable manner, despite their promises not to do that, and to spend all the money on themselves.
We have heard repeatedly that this proposal will not cost any more money. Yet, did Mr Collaery address that question at all in his remarks to the Assembly? Not a word. He has led everybody to believe that he has some incredibly clever trick to make six Ministers somehow equal four Ministers and six lots of ministerial staff equal four, and so not have the proposal cost any more money. Yet he has not given us a word of detail on that.
I think the Government has shown the most enormous effrontery to the Canberra community by standing up in this place after their onslaught on that Canberra community and arguing for more Ministers. It will be very interesting indeed to see how many extra schools will have to close to pay for these ministerial salaries, the staff that will go with them, the cars that will go with them, the change of letterheads and so on.
Mr Collaery's arguments about workload have been absolutely non-existent. He has just not put a case; he has not presented one iota of evidence that the workload justifies it. If you look at the work record of this Government you will see that during the seven months that we were in government we introduced much more legislation than it has in its period in office, and it was much more substantive legislation. You will see, Mr Speaker, that this Government has not taken its workload at all seriously. You would even see at this point, I think, that the private members' business on the notice paper exceeds the Government's business. So what has it been doing?
There is clear evidence that it cannot cope, but I do not think there is any evidence whatsoever that any more of you, made into trick Ministers, will cope any better. You
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