Page 3727 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 9 December 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: I beg your pardon - 23,000 public servants providing it with resources and energies and strategies. With 23,000 people behind it, how many Bills are on the paper? Three.
Mr De Domenico: How many?
MR HUMPHRIES: Three Bills.
Mr De Domenico: Out of how many?
MR HUMPHRIES: Three out of 13. Nine of the Bills on the program come from members on the cross benches or the Opposition. Are you not ashamed? Do you not feel ashamed?
Ms Follett: You cannot cope with what we give you.
MR HUMPHRIES: These people have some gall, Mr Deputy Speaker. I beg your pardon; I will correct that. It is 10 Bills from the Opposition and the cross benches and only three from the Government - really quite pathetic. Mr Connolly in an interjection raised the old furphy about the Adoption Bill. That is one piece of legislation introduced late in the session. It is not inconsistent for the Opposition to call at the same time for a reasonably active program and time to consider these Bills when they come forward. That is what we ask for. You have had the Bill since February. Why could you not have given us the benefit of a little more time to consider it on the floor of the Assembly?
This is an active, reformist government, is it? Well, 70 per cent of its program is unseen; only 31 per cent of its first priority Bills have been presented. Thank God for an active, reformist government. Imagine what an inactive, reactionary government would be like. It is pretty hard to imagine. This performance has been nothing short of miserable. In future, the Government should stop grandstanding and puffing out its chest about its program at the beginning of each session and, instead, deliver a realistic program which does not mislead the people of the ACT.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.36): Mr Deputy Speaker, I think it is a quite good idea to have a matter of public importance such as this come up before us every now and then. It gives a young member such as Mr Humphries the chance to vent his spleen in a relatively harmless fashion. It also gives him a chance to fool about with the numbers a little. He is obviously experiencing some frustrations in fooling about with the numbers in his own caucus. It is quite clear that Mr Humphries fancies his chances as the next Leader of the Opposition. Who knows? He has been there before. We are clearly seeing a further bid for fame. If we let him fool around with the numbers as he has done today, then I very much doubt whether he will ever actually get the numbers in his own caucus. This is a little outlet for him, and I think that is fair enough.
One of the problems Mr Humphries has in taking on this matter of public importance is that he has not put forward the full facts of the matter. That is his right, as the putative Leader of the Opposition. You would not expect him to put forward anything that might be in the Government's favour. The fact is that by the end of the budget sittings of the Assembly the Government will have introduced some 34 Bills, 21 of which are included in the first priority
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