Page 4665 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
We have this Opposition that has absolutely branded itself as an opposition that has no interest in changing anything; there is no beneficial change whatsoever. We should not be surprised, of course, because that is how they performed in the seven months they were in government. They changed nothing. They simply dug themselves deeper and deeper into the financial hole that the Territory was in before they took the Government. They just dug that hole deeper. They could not see the end of the tunnel. As far as they were concerned, the light at the end of the tunnel was truly that train coming the other way. Well, we have a bigger vision. We are making beneficial change and the community out there understands this.
I just have to refute Mr Berry's assertion. He said, "The first thing we heard about this was in August". Well, I have to say that Mr Berry obviously does not listen. This has been commented on by Mr Moore and others. It has been Liberal Party policy since the election of nearly two years ago now that the Community Development Fund would go, and it was our policy that it should go for the very reasons that have been brought out in the debate tonight. It is totally anachronistic. It no longer serves the needs of this community. We do not need it anyway. I suppose it is interesting to read the ACT Labor Government policy. It says:
An ACT Labor Government will ensure that the major community organisations which received -
past tense -
funding under the Community Development Fund will receive funding directly from the ACT Government.
That was your policy. You have gone to water on that like you do on every major issue. We knew exactly what needed to be done, as we knew about so many other things, and we have actually moved in and done it.
I am interested in this argument that has been thrown up by the members of the Opposition about the interest, as though somehow the interest was of relevance. What we said was that it is money that you did not spend, and it is money that no previous government spent. The amounts allocated from the Community Development Fund year after year took no cognisance of the fact that interest was earned. There was always - up until last year - a very significant reserve of funds, which very largely represented the interest.
We have said that we will continue, we will guarantee, to make the same expenditures in real terms as were made in your year of government in the budget that you presented. That is the baseline. We have given that undertaking and we will live with it. The interesting thing is, though, that that commitment will be made whether interest is earned on the money or not. The interest is totally irrelevant. I suppose that now somebody is going to get up
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .