Page 2405 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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that can be profitable enough to continue expanding its responsibilities to the needy. It would be an absolute disaster to start selling off our public housing stocks at this stage. I think a social justice view of that would recognise that that suggestion, which has come directly from CARD and others, could well be catastrophic.
With those few comments I think I will leave it there. In due time, I will be making further comments. But I have appreciated the fact that the indications that I have given previously have been taken up in this budget strategy, and I will be interested to watch the much more detailed outline of what goes on in Canberra when your budget is brought down. The difficulties that we will have are to resolve the deficit that the Alliance Government has handed over to you, which was very different from the one that you passed on to it.
MR JENSEN (3.40): Mr Speaker, in the budget strategy statement of 24 July, by the Chief Minister, we heard once again how the Federal Labor Government has withdrawn considerable ACT funding. Once again we have seen that we cannot rely on the Federal Government for a fair deal for the Territory. The Territory is not asking for anything abnormal; we are just asking for a fair deal for the community which we represent. After all, ACT funding by the Commonwealth was one of the reasons self-government was foisted upon us. We know that the introduction of self-government was the only way that the Commonwealth Government could reduce its direct budgetary expenditure on the ACT. No-one expected a handout; we just wanted a reasonable share of the cake to assist us to recover from the years of Commonwealth Government neglect, particularly as it relates to our infrastructure and other areas. I will come to that later, in response to some of the points that Mr Moore made.
Ms Follett's broad proposals in the budget strategy statement were admirable but lacking specific detail and direction. It was not until I got to about the last three or four pages that I finally found something to read. The first bit was just waffle. There were a lot of high-sounding statements but no real guts or information for the community to work on. Commitments must be translated into real programs, and these programs must be spelt out in detail. I hope that we are going to see a bit more detail in the budget when it finally hits the table. How is the community expected to comment on broadly based motherhood statements? Quite frankly, that is all we got in the statement that was put down on 24 July.
Mr Berry: It is not the budget, Norm; that will come later.
MR JENSEN: Mr Berry interjects, Mr Speaker. The Labor Government is seeking comment from the community, but they do not give anything for the community to comment on. There are broad-based motherhood statements; waffle is
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