Page 194 - Week 01 - Thursday, 9 April 1992
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to 1990-91 so far as the public contribution was concerned. That was an inherited thing. It did not just happen the day I became Chief Minister. What we will probably see for 1991-92, when this new Government is here, is that it will drop off significantly when the next set of figures are published. They will show that they are benefiting from the results of our good work when we were in government. Sadly, that is the way life is. Labor was able to claim the benefit of our good work and we had to wear the bad consequences of theirs. So, you win a bit and you lose a bit.
In that respect I would like to note that the Chief Minister often makes much of the fact that the size of the ACT Government Service increased during my time as Chief Minister. In fact, if she takes a look at the last annual report put out by her own Head of Administration, she will find that, during the year that she was Chief Minister and had her budget, the public service increased by about 450 people, and during the following year when I was Chief Minister it was reduced by a greater number than that. At the end of the two-year period there were fewer people on the ACT Government Service payroll than there were when she started. People cast these figures about, but they need to be sure that their figures are accurate and that they can sustain them.
This is a good subject for debate. It needed to be discussed. It needed to be discussed because this Government failed to do anything - - -
Mr Moore: Bill Stefaniak is still writing your MPIs.
MR KAINE: Mr Stefaniak had a good idea in August and it is no less a good idea in April 1992. I commit myself again, as a prospective Chief Minister, once again at some time in the future to sit down and lend Mr Lamont my notes so that he can sort out his industrial dispute.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (4.24): This has been the greatest lesson that has been handed out in the few short days of this Assembly. First of all, never let an MPI pass through your hands without looking at it. You have been unceremoniously done over as a result of an ill thought out MPI which really did not get to the point. It was shown repeatedly in the debate that Labor has done a great job in relation to ACTION, and it will continue to do so. I never thought I would see it, but I saw Tony De Domenico speechless with anger when he realised the mistake that he had made. All of a sudden he was speechless with anger. You very rarely find him speechless. I thought he was going to bite the top off his pen at one stage, as my colleagues did him over and over. Mr Kaine, my advice to you is to watch these people because they will get you into very serious trouble. It might be a plot; it could be a scheme - - -
Mr Connolly: It might be deliberate.
MR BERRY: It might be a deliberate scheme. Be very careful in future when MPIs are put up in this place. Make sure that they are not carbon copies of what Bill Stefaniak has written.
MADAM SPEAKER: The time for the discussion has concluded.
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