Page 3817 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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Dr Kinloch: We have had no chance to debate this.
MR SPEAKER: We are going to do that this afternoon. I now call on Mr Moore to move his motion.
MR MOORE (12.51): I move:
That, notwithstanding any order of the Assembly in relation to this item of business, the debate be adjourned and the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour this day and be called on at 5 p.m., notwithstanding any other business before the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Sitting suspended from 12.52 to 2.30 pm
QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Quarterly Economic Report
MR KAINE: I would like to follow up on a question I asked the Chief Minister and Treasurer yesterday about the Government holding back on the release of the quarterly economic report for the June quarter. The Chief Minister has made much of the fact that the statistics for Canberra were good and that the Government had no reason to withhold them. In fact, there was one very bad statistic, and that had to do with tourism. The total hotel and motel takings fell by 9.3 per cent compared with the same quarter last year, and visits to select major tourist attractions in June were 22.6 per cent lower than for the same quarter last year. Those statistics do not augur well if our major industry is collapsing. I ask the Chief Minister whether, given that she has taken $1m out of the tourism budget, the statistics were held back until after the budget was presented.
MS FOLLETT: I repeat what I said yesterday, and that is that the statistics were certainly not held back. I released them the very moment they came to my office. In fact, I released the report before I had had a chance to study it in any depth myself. I did that because I think it is important that that information is in the public arena as soon as is humanly possible, and that is what occurred.
I should also qualify one of Mr Kaine's statements about my having made much, in his words, of the fact that the report was a good one. What I said yesterday - and I say it again today - is that in general terms the ACT economy is holding up relatively well in the face of the national recession. I certainly do not believe that we have any room for smugness, which is perhaps what Mr Kaine is implying.
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