Page 242 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 May 1992
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Our real targets, our real accomplishments, must be in those areas I referred to, Madam Speaker; but they have not been, not under this Government. Under the former Government, of course, there were many. There were significant reductions in expenditure in the areas of both health and education, to name those with which I am most familiar. Even those were attacked quite relentlessly by the then Opposition, by the Government as it now is. We saved money in hospital services, in food services, in cleaning, in restructuring of our school system - all micro-economic reforms, all designed to bring our level of expenditure down towards State levels, all canned comprehensively by those sitting opposite.
We have had one win here. We managed to get recognition of the ACT's firearms legislation as a way of ensuring that our excellent legislation, which was passed by the Alliance Government, is not compromised by developments elsewhere. I have to say, Madam Speaker, that I suspect that this is very much an afterthought, putting a bit of icing on a very burnt and black cake to dress up this product for our consumption; but it will not really work.
The fact of life, Madam Speaker, if you think about it, is that that kind of exemption is applied not just in the case of firearms but in other cases as well. It is natural and to be expected, and would probably have happened even if Rosemary Follett had stayed at home yesterday. It is really no achievement at all. It is a natural consequence of the fact that we have different laws in this country between different jurisdictions, some of which are different for a reason. Our gun laws are a good example of that. We have better gun laws than other States; therefore we should retain that better status by not agreeing to commonality on that matter. That is not an achievement, Madam Speaker, by any stretch of the imagination.
I notice also that it was agreed that legislation providing for a common market, as the Chief Minister put it, should not apply to things including pornography. She argued for gun laws in the ACT to be exempted. Presumably she also argued for our pornography laws to be exempted, although she has not put out a press release about that subject. Presumably she said, "We want to continue to remain the centre of a very lucrative market for pornography in this country and we therefore would like you not to have any Federal laws compromising that particular situation. Therefore can you please exempt us from these arrangements?". I look forward to a full and honest press release on that subject coming out of the Chief Minister's office in the next few days.
Mr Kaine: And on banning X-rated videos.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed. I look forward to those comments. Madam Speaker, this Government patently has failed to achieve anything out of this Premiers Conference that is worth coming back and making a statement about. That is why it was something of a surprise to see the Chief Minister coming here today and, effectively, crowing about these achievements.
Ms Follett: You asked me to tell you about it. I heard you on the radio.
MR HUMPHRIES: No. We want to see some real achievements and we have not seen them. That is the fact of life, Madam Speaker. If we are going to spend the effort in future on exercises such as this, let us see the Chief Minister produce something of more tangible, long-lasting benefit to this Territory.
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