Page 3573 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 September 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
bookkeeping service. It is also not a system that removes private banks, for the private banks would continue to supply credit for the community for private and commercial purposes.
The advantage of the revised system would be that there would be a mechanism by which the people could control the operations of the private banks through their own parliamentary banks. I make the point that parliamentary banks differ from what we now know as State banks, in that State banks are simply commercial trading banks owned by the respective governments and a parliamentary bank is set up and run by the parliament.
Mr Speaker, with this sort of evidence there is no excuse whatsoever for politicians of any political party who are debating and voting on financial policies which affect the whole community to be ignorant of the way the nation's money is made. Mr Speaker, I will be moving for an inquiry to be conducted by the Public Accounts Committee into the matter of the creation of credit.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister) (3.49): I think this is, and will continue to be, a rather curious debate. I had some serious thoughts about whether I would participate in it at all, but I thought that it really is necessary that we come down out of cloud cuckoo land and talk about the real world. Mr Stevenson's matter of public importance has to do with, in his own words, circumstances, factors, laws or conditions which prevent business from enjoying the benefits of low interest rates. I am quite sure there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such factors that affect their ability to enjoy the benefits of low interest rates. (Quorum formed)
The second part of his matter of public importance has to do with whether any of them are removable. Well, I would remind Mr Stevenson that this is the Legislative Assembly of the Australian Capital Territory. It is not the Federal Parliament. The Federal Treasurer does not sit here. It is not the Reserve Bank. While it might well be that there are some factors that are removable, it is not within the jurisdiction of this Assembly to remove them. So, one would have to wonder why we are debating the matter at all, since it is purely academic. No matter what we say or what we decide or what we conclude, it is a pointless academic exercise.
Mr Stevenson: We should take action on behalf of the people of Canberra.
MR KAINE: Well, I would submit, Mr Speaker, that everything that this Government can do, or that this Assembly can do, is in fact being done. Having said that the ACT Government has no administrative or legislative control over the operations of the trading banks, and that that is a Commonwealth responsibility and up to the Federal Parliament or the Federal Treasurer to deal with, I would
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .