Page 3576 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 September 1990
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MR KAINE: Your hypothesis about credit and all of that, as I said before, is really cloud cuckoo land stuff.
Mr Stevenson: Which particular quote, Chief Minister?
MR KAINE: Well, all of it. In terms of this ability to generate credit, all of it. Perhaps we should put it to the test. Perhaps we should seek from the Commonwealth the power to establish our own bank, which, unfortunately, we do not have, and then we should make Dennis the chairman of the board of directors of that bank. If his philosophy is right, our economic and financial troubles are over. Well, I doubt that that would be so. I think we would pretty soon find ourselves in the same situation as Victoria, where our bank was bankrupt and the Government was almost bankrupt as well, because it is not that simple. If it were that simple we would have some very healthy governments in Australia.
We do not have too many, other than that in Queensland, strangely enough, that are really healthy in financial terms, so perhaps we should be studying the economic philosophies of Joh rather than the ones that you are espousing.
I think that we do have to be realistic. It is unproductive, in my view, to have this kind of pie in the sky debate. It leads nowhere. It does nothing for us. It does nothing for our economy.
Mr Stevenson: It is leading somewhere.
MR KAINE: Well, I do not think it is leading anywhere and I think that when this debate concludes that will be the absolute end of it. I do not expect this Territory to get any benefit out of the one hour that we are spending on this debate, or as much of that hour as we consume, quite frankly.
MR CONNOLLY (3.59): Mr Deputy Speaker, I will not take up much of the hour that has been allocated to this debate. I have already spoken on some of these theories of Mr Clampett who, I understand, is present in the chamber. I have, I think, fairly effectively debunked them, in common with the Chief Minister. But just for a minute let us sit back and reflect: would it not be wonderful if Mr Clampett was right? Would it not be wonderful if economics was no longer the dismal science, if economics was not an issue of allocation of scarcity, if we could have unlimited creation of public credit by State banks?
Mr Stevenson said that this Territory could never have a bank. That, of course, is not so. The Commonwealth Parliament, as you would be aware, Mr Deputy Speaker, under the Territories power - the Territories power is a plenary power - could, if it were so minded, give this Territory full power to operate a bank. So we could have this great
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