Page 3539 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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consultation and is most uncomfortable with it. It does not have to be a confrontation; it can be a genuine exchange of views which leads in the end to a very much better outcome, and I am sure that will be the case with the guardianship Bills.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: It is now past 3 o'clock and, pursuant to the resolution of the Assembly on 17 September 1991, we now go to executive business, order of the day No. 7, the Appropriation Bill.
APPROPRIATION BILL 1991-92
Debate resumed from 17 September 1991, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.01): Mr Acting Speaker, the budget that was presented last Tuesday is truly reflective of the Treasurer herself.
Mr Connolly: Hear, hear! It is an excellent budget. She is an excellent Treasurer.
MR KAINE: Wait for it, Mr Connolly. It reflects a lack of the capability to grasp reality, a propensity for focusing on the peripheral or even ephemeral problems, and the ability to ignore completely the long-term economic reality that this community is facing in the next few years. Looking at the situation at the Federal level and in the Labor-governed States, this is, clearly, a characteristic that she shares with her Federal and State Labor colleagues.
Australia has had 8 years of Labor's economic mismanagement at the Commonwealth level, and where are we now? We are immersed in the worst recession in this country's history, the recession that we had to have. We have a Federal Government that has, without any conscience at all, created the highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression - not just statistics, but one million real people; the highest level of bankruptcies; crippling interest rates; a general destruction of our export potential; and the lowest morale in our society's history. These things, of course, impact on the people in our community, just as they do on other Australians.
The impact of the national economic problem in all its terrifying magnitude does not apply only outside the borders of the ACT. Far from it. Indeed, our community has been the hardest hit of all the States and Territories, the major blow being delivered by the Commonwealth itself. Whilst other States have faced a minor reduction in
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