Page 2017 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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So we have this great mystery, Mr Deputy Speaker, about what it is that this Labor Government intends to do. What are its policy directions, whether social or economic? We have seen some achievements since July 1991, in over a year since they took government again. Those achievements, essentially, have been to put in place the program that was set in train by the Alliance Government. Look at all of the major pieces of legislation that have been put on the table since then. The planning legislation was developed comprehensively by the Alliance Government; the Discrimination Act was developed by the Alliance Government; the Weapons Act was developed by the Alliance Government. Even the Animal Welfare Act which they trumpeted about so much lately, although it is badly corrupted, as admitted by Mr Lamont, was admitted by Mr Lamont to have been done on the basis of work that was done under the Alliance Government. Even Mr Lamont said so on the floor of the house. What came out was not what the Alliance Government was working towards, but at least it is based on work done by the Alliance Government.
So where are we now? Since July 1991 we are 14 months downstream and what has happened? We have a cessation of any output from this Government of any substance whatsoever. In other words, they have run out of the legislation and the initiatives that the Alliance Government took. They have no initiatives of their own. If they do, where are they? Where is the legislation that demonstrates that this Government has done anything?
Ms Follett: Another 10 minutes.
MR KAINE: I will tell you where it is. The Chief Minister is going to put on the table this afternoon a piece of legislation that is a direct steal from legislation that I put on the table three weeks ago. Mr Berry is pursuing a program on methadone which is a direct steal of what Mrs Carnell put on the table a few weeks ago. They are now not only relying on what was put into effect during the Alliance Government; they are now stealing on a day-by-day basis the initiatives of members of the Opposition. They have to fill their program somehow. If that is not true, where is their legislation? Let us see the legislation that this Government has developed in the last 14 months. Let us see the initiatives that they have taken. I do not see any, and neither does anybody else, frankly.
We certainly know that they have no economic agenda, Mr Deputy Speaker. You only have to look at their budgets. There has been no consistency. There has been no revelation of any strategy or any long-term thinking in their budgets. They spend all their reserves one year and then go into big borrowing programs the next. This demonstrates an ambivalence and an adhockery that are unbelievable. It also demonstrates ambivalence in the party itself.
For example, during the development of the last budget a year ago the Chief Minister and Treasurer made much of the fact that she was not going to borrow; borrowing was a bad thing. Yet her own policy platform, the Labor Party platform, says - this is a bit of what they did not tell us about during the election campaign - that Labor believes that borrowings are an appropriate method of funding. That appears at page 22, paragraph 5.4.2, of the Labor Party platform. But only a year ago the Chief Minister and Treasurer was telling us, "You cannot borrow; that is bad". We will see what she does next week when she brings the next budget down. We will see whether there is a consistency even from one year to the next, despite the inconsistency between her publicly expressed view and that of her party.
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