Page 3077 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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MR JENSEN (4.53): It is called plastic surgery, Mrs Grassby, and some people actually do that at times; but I will come to that later on. I would like to start by expressing my thanks to the members of the committee's secretariat who assisted the committee to consider two capital works budget proposals in a very short period of time, under some considerable pressure. That put considerable extra work on them and the officials who are required to appear before the committee. I refer specifically to the committee secretary, Mr Greg McIntosh, who has worked tirelessly on the planning committee over a number of years now, and Mrs Kim Blackburn, who finalised the production of the report.
At this stage, Mr Speaker, I will make a passing comment on something that occurred during the term of this particular inquiry. It relates, of course, to the changes that took place in the committee after our very own D-day on 6 June this year. The change to the committee's presiding member on 28 June was most unfortunate and relates to the influence of the duopoly. Members may recall the support provided to Mr Wood, as chairman of the Social Policy Committee, after the changes in 1989 which saw the establishment of the Alliance Government. It is unfortunate that similar sentiments were not allowed to prevail in this case.
Mr Speaker, when we considered the second set of capital works proposals it was clear that $17m less was to be spent than originally proposed by the Alliance Government. It was for that reason that the new committee sought comment from business organisations and unions - I repeat, unions - as to the likely effect on the economy of such a dramatic drop in capital expenditure. The Building Workers Industrial Union secretary appeared before the committee and spoke quite eloquently about the possible effect on his members because of this considerable reduction. Mr Kaine, as presiding member, has adequately covered the likely effects on employment and I do not propose to refer to that any further.
Mr Speaker, reasonable capital works expenditure is an important part of any government's budget. (Quorum formed) Thank you, Mr Stevenson, for taking a couple of minutes off my time.
Mr Stevenson: I got some listeners for you.
MR JENSEN: You stopped me from speaking, which is most unfortunate.
As I said before, I agree with Mrs Grassby that anyone who borrows on their bankcard for capital works will get into trouble; there is no problem about that at all. However, we are talking about capital expenditure. What does Mrs Grassby expect? Does she expect that the residents of Canberra today, and only the residents of Canberra today,
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