Page 3937 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
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I mentioned yesterday the tourism industry, which is probably the most important industry for us, in the short term at least. We have this downturn, which is beginning to show up in the figures. That downturn will be reflected, in the end, in reduced employment, higher unemployment figures and reduced retail trading. All the good figures will start to deteriorate. And what happens at the same time that these figures come out - in fact, three months afterwards, because they were the figures for the June quarter? What does this Government do? It takes a million dollars out of the budget and gets the response that the Chief Executive Officer of the Tourism Commission, not long before employed, resigns.
So, we do not have to go very far in the business community to find out that there is discontent. And, of course, as I said, we do not have to go far to find a trade union official who is starting to wonder about where this Government is going, because they still do not know whether the staff reductions for the next year - affecting their constituency - will be 250, 520 or 700.
So, one does not have to go very far in any direction from this building. And one can talk to any sector of the community and one will have a hard time finding anybody, I submit, who thinks that this budget is a good one - and one will have a hard time finding anybody who is not concerned about the consequences of it for them.
That leads me to the great consultation hoax, which this Government perpetrates constantly. It claims that it consulted with the business world. What happened, in fact, was that CARD went along and gave it the same briefing that it gave to my Government before we moved from the fifth floor. There was no other consultation; there were no other discussions with the business world; that was it. Government members claim consultation. Consultation is one meeting where they give you some ideas and you ignore them entirely! That is your consultation.
Mr Berry: That is the Liberal version.
MR KAINE: That is your consultation. If you can show me somebody else that you consulted with in the private sector, I will be fascinated. There is this consultation hoax. They keep talking about consultation and they simply have not consulted with anybody on any issue. This budget, as I stated on 19 September, failed before it began, and nothing has happened since to change my view.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.22): Mr Deputy Speaker, I was expecting to have to fight my way through Mr Kaine's rhetoric to get to any grain of argument that he might have put forward in introducing this MPI this afternoon. Unfortunately - and it is unfortunate - he is lacking in both rhetoric and argument. Since it is a rare event indeed for Mr Kaine to introduce an MPI, I think it
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