Page 1021 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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back in December of 1989". That is a twisting of the truth. I knew about a budget problem in 1989. The Government took action to respond to that. It took appropriate action. It had to fix up a very big mess inherited from Mr Berry - a $7m budget mess - and I think people acknowledge that fact. We have only ourselves to look to to deal with this problem, given that the Opposition is insistent on remaining uncooperative in the process of managing the ACT's long-term financial problems. It depends on this Government to deal with those issues.
I note with some interest the contrast in the comments Ms Follett has made tonight about the economic outlook for the ACT and those made by her party colleague the Federal Minister for Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories on the same topic. I was present at the luncheon last Friday when she spoke about that, and I would have to say that Mrs Kelly's outlook was very positive. She said that the ACT had much to be proud of and that the situation here is considerably better than it is in most other places in this country. I really have to wonder how those two views can be reconciled - Ms Follett with her tales of doom and gloom, all put at the doorstep of this particular ACT Government, with no mention whatever of the Federal Government's role in any of this; and Mrs Kelly's comments which paint a considerably better picture, particularly in such areas as youth unemployment, than that painted by the Opposition. Clearly those two views cannot be reconciled.
Mr Collaery: They cannot. All the engines are out on the port wing.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, as Mr Collaery says, it is all to do with port and starboard, is it not?
Mr Collaery: There is a bit of a tilt to the left.
MR HUMPHRIES: It could well be, Mr Deputy Chief Minister; I think I would accept that view. The claim that this Government lacks a strategy for dealing with the ACT's economic problems, I think, needs to be contrasted with the strategy, if that word can be used, that the Follett Government used when it was in power for seven months in 1989. What was their approach to economic problems in the ACT then? What can we expect if we have another dose of the Follett Government after the next election, heaven forbid? Last time we saw increasingly unsuccessful attempts to trim expenditure in the ACT; plans announced which had to be withdrawn after public outcry and outrage about those things; a complete lack of determination in the areas of health and education, among others; followed by a necessity to resort to huge hikes in business taxes, with the result that the ACT, of course, lurched from crisis to crisis until in December of 1989 the Alliance Government put the Follett Government out of its misery. I think the contrast between what has been achieved by us and what was not achieved by those opposite will be a very longstanding memory on the part of many people in the ACT.
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