Page 3942 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
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into implementation first. He has got a bit ahead of himself. I am afraid he has been proved to be totally devoid of argument and to really be just trying to bluff and bluster in an attempt to cover up his own failures in his budget last year.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.37): Mr Deputy Speaker, I cannot see where Ms Follett gets the pride with which she appears to defend this budget. If I were her, I would be extremely wary about putting my head up anywhere and saying, "I am proud about having masterminded the 1991-92 budget". Mr Kaine described this budget as a failed budget. The matter of public importance itself makes it quite clear that this is a failed 1991-92 budget that we are talking about. Of course, it is a fair description, even though it has not been passed, on the very criterion which Ms Follett herself said, in the budget speech - which I do not have in front of me - that she would use to assess the value of her own budget achievements.
Ms Follett said in her budget speech - and I thank Mr Kaine for having found that reference for me:
No matter how strong the rhetorical justification that may be given for particular budget measures, they will not succeed if the community believes that these measures are unjust or unfair.
On that criterion, this budget, although only a few weeks old, has already failed. On that criterion - Ms Follett's own criterion - the budget has failed. The budget clearly does not have the support of the ACT community - in a way which would have been, frankly, inconceivable a few months ago when the Alliance Government was facing difficulties. I am extraordinarily surprised at how quickly this Government has fallen foul of the very community it relied upon to win office only a few months ago.
We have seen the most extraordinary unravelling of a budget ever in the life of this Assembly. Labor claimed, at the very early stages of this budget - and I think Mr Connolly was one of the chief protagonists of this point of view - that this was a well received budget, a popular budget. That description has not been used for some weeks, and I can well understand why. The singed hair and the shell-shocked eyes of those opposite, I think, indicate pretty clearly that those Ministers and members opposite do not really believe that little story any more.
One has only to look outside at the health unions, the non-government school parents, the tourism commissioners and the police - almost anybody you care to talk to about this budget - to see that there is, in fact, widespread community disenchantment with this Government and with its budget. I think that particular lesson is going to come home to roost, because those opposite know that this budget is the culmination of the mistake that they made in electoral terms by taking back office on 6 June this year.
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