Page 4663 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
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have been involved in CDF funding by this back door method. They did not have the courage to say that it needs to be rearranged; so, instead, they abolished the fund. In that way they can reassess the people who are on the fund.
The second reason is, of course, the interest on the money that has gone, usually, into capital expenditure. It has gone there certainly over the last few years. It is interesting that in the introduction speech to this Bill the Chief Minister said this:
The Government has given a commitment that funding allocated to recurrent programs during 1989-90 will be maintained in real terms in 1990-91 and 1991-92.
I think the critical part of that comment is the phrase "allocated to recurrent programs". We know that the interest from the CDF has been allocated, by and large previously, to capital works, and particularly one-off special capital works for the community. The Government have given themselves room to move to ensure that it is possible for them to cut funding in the capital area which may be of great use to the community.
The discussion paper that Mr Collaery tabled before - I shall be interested to have a thorough look at it - reminds me a great deal of the consultation on schools. The Government says: "What we do is we decide that we are going to close schools and then we start a consultation process as to which ones". Contrary to what Mr Stefaniak thinks, that debate is clearly not ended.
We have a new debate starting in exactly the same way. You would have thought that the Government might learn, but instead we have a discussion paper being presented after the gate has been closed on the CDF. According to Mr Duby, it certainly will be closed tonight. It is also interesting - - -
Mr Collaery: You have not read it. It does not cut off any grants. It closes nothing. It offers a new consultative mechanism. It expands things.
MR MOORE: Mr Collaery interjects that no door is closed. I am talking about the closure of the door of the CDF itself. Mr Collaery, in his agitation tonight, on a number of occasions has used the word "juvenile". I notice that it is a word that Mr Collaery uses in a large number of debates in this house. It is also interesting that Mr Connolly has given credit to the Liberal Party for saying that they are actually sticking to a part of their policy here. I looked through my copy of The Liberal Vision for Canberra after Mr Connolly mentioned that, but I cannot find anything in it. I will be quite delighted to have that pointed out.
Mr Humphries: It is not all the policy.
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