Page 3724 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: We will see. Let us, first of all, acknowledge that the program outlined by Mr Berry at that date in August and the statement that accompanied it were a little woolly in some respects. Lots of qualifications and hedging appeared in the statement, which makes it a little hard to pin the Government down as to what it was promising to the Assembly at the time it delivered that statement. You have phrases such as "proposals intended for introduction" and "proposals for preparation during the budget sitting". The Government is not going to tell us what it has in preparation at the present time, and I suppose it will pretend that everything that is not actually presented will be prepared; but I remain highly sceptical about that.
We were told that the program must be flexible and that the classification of proposals may also be subject to change. That may be the case. We have not actually been told about any of the classifications having changed; so I think we are entitled to assume that, since there have not been any announced changes, all the legislation remains in the category in which it was placed when Mr Berry made his statement in August. The last sentence of Mr Berry's statement reads:
I trust that members and the public will find the document informative and useful.
I trust that that will be realised to be a prophetically unhelpful and untrue statement. The bottom line is this: How much did the Government actually achieve - - -
Mr Berry: What was untrue about it?
MR HUMPHRIES: I will come to that. How much did the Government actually achieve in the course of this budget session? How many promises has it delivered? What exactly has this active, reformist Government - to quote Mr Connolly a few moments ago - done for the Territory? We have done some calculations, and, on a portfolio by portfolio classification, we see that Ms Follett promised 12 Bills in her classification, of which only four have been introduced in the Assembly and only three passed; eight have not been tabled or otherwise seen. That leaves a strike rate of Bills not tabled, as promised in the legislative program, of some 67 per cent.
For the Deputy Chief Minister, unfortunately, there has been an even worse performance: 27 Bills were promised; only six were introduced and six passed; and 21 were not tabled - a strike rate of Bills not tabled of 78 per cent. For Mr Wood, the figures are slightly better: 15 Bills were promised; five were introduced, four were passed and 10 were not tabled - also 67 per cent of Bills not tabled. For Mr Connolly, 68 were Bills promised; 15 were introduced, only 13 were passed, and 53 Bills out of 68 were not tabled or otherwise seen. Seventy-eight per cent of Bills were nowhere to be seen. He is as bad as Mr Berry, which is a terrible comparison to make.
The Government says, "We are really getting on with the job here; we are an active, reformist Government; we have the runs on the board; we are doing the job". I am afraid that the facts just do not speak in that same way.
Mr Berry: They do when you compare us with you.
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