Page 4175 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 October 1991
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Some suggestions have already been made, such as those that Dr Kinloch referred to, which are really modelled on some of the programs in which the NRMA is already involved in this community. I think the NRMA presently runs a scheme with the Child Accident Prevention Foundation involving the provision of child safety capsules. That sort of thing could be expanded. Perhaps a child cycle safety helmet scheme or those sorts of things could be developed. There is a whole range of activities, and I am not going to canvass all of them now.
I need to stress that when this story first broke there were media statements that really were suggesting that everything we always wanted could be brought about with this money. I think that reached the high-water mark in a letter to the Canberra Times in which somebody suggested that we really did not need the ACT Government because we could do everything with this NRMA money. At the outset, the total amount that we are talking about might be something in the order of $40m, which is less than 4 per cent of one year's Territory budget. Yet there was this sort of wild expectation that had been beaten up in some sections of the community that this was manna from heaven that would solve everybody's problems. Well, it will not.
It is obviously a significant benefit to the community. It is obviously good news to the community that we have reached this agreement with the NRMA, and for some years there will be a direct and tangible benefit to every one of us when third-party insurance and registration time comes around, because we will see that there is a subsidy in each year's third-party premium. This trust fund can also continue, we would expect, for some years to produce projects of real benefit to the Canberra community.
But that is really what it is. It is not something that is going to solve budgetary problems across the Territory, and it is irresponsible in the extreme, I would say, for any members who are now aware of the full facts of this matter to suggest out in the community that we can use it for this or that program that really ought to be budget funded, and that we can somehow use this money to top up budget cuts or supplement funding for problems that any ACT government will face, with a decline in the Commonwealth revenue base to this Territory.
One point needs to be stressed yet again, and that is that this money was the NRMA's. As soon as this issue was raised with the Government back in 1989 when Mrs Grassby was Minister, the opinion of the Government Solicitor was sought as to the legal status of this money; that is, whether the Government had any claim on the money and whether we could simply say to the NRMA, "Thank you very much. We will have a cheque to Consolidated Revenue". After some considerable consideration, the Government Solicitor responded on 21 May 1990 - that was in the time of the Alliance Government - and I will read the short answer:
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