Page 2201 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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The budget settings are already in place. The new policy proposals, which are an important aspect of government, have already been developed over the months by the bureaucracy in consultation with the community. There is an inertia in much of the budget process which cannot be reversed. Likewise, Mr Speaker, the taxing reviews and many other ancillary aspects are complete and cannot really and easily be fiddled with. In my view, there is little damage that Ms Follett could do in the short term before the next election, but I am sure that she will not push on with unilateral cuts in the same fashion as indicated in the Chief Minister's statement about health and education.
We want to be frank, Mr Speaker. The utterances of the Chief Minister in the last few days on those issues have been practically decisive in the manner in which we are going to approach this debate, because we cannot go back to more of the old. I am sure that Ms Follett will be sensitive in the area of budget management. She has to quarantine the social impact of our recurrent budgetary problems as much as possible. She has to look at new solutions. Were she to be elected Chief Minister, she should quickly bring in eminent outside and independent economic advice to provide practical solutions now. (Extension of time granted) She must now look to those issues if she seeks to govern. I have not heard an undertaking from her today; but, no doubt, she has to close this debate.
Mr Speaker, there is a danger, I believe, that Labor in government may be too sensitive and may give in to single issue groups, but I doubt that. Ms Follett has seen what has happened to her colleagues interstate and I have no doubt that she will resist that temptation because the lesson lies in Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. She would know, were she in a minority situation, that her practices could easily be curbed.
Mr Speaker, the Rally, having learnt the skills of government and having found out what goes on, or maybe some of what goes on, in the cloisters of the bureaucracy, believes that it is fit to provide a stabilising influence in this chamber. I pledge to the people of Canberra that we will do that. We will remain on the cross benches come what may in this debate today. We have a blueprint for stable government which, in effect, requires either incoming government to stick to sensible parameters set already and to stay away from the pork-barrelling and single interest feedlines which have, in fact, marked much of Labor's performance elsewhere in this country.
Mr Speaker, I conclude by saying that on 29 May 1991 Trevor Kaine said that the Rally and the Liberal Party simply could not work together any more. I think that says it all. There has been a great deal of lengthy debate. It may well have been good if we could have got this over and done with at the time, because it has been obvious to many that we are unable to get on; we are unable to support the economic directions and economic imperatives, particularly
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