Page 353 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 23 February 1993
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MR KAINE: You are the Chief Minister that talks about social justice. Your budget, you say, is based on the principles of social justice and you talk about the status of women. You talk about the rights of women and you do not deliver. I think that, by and large, the women in the ACT would have to say, if they were asked for an opinion, that they have made few gains under this Follett Government. Where are the jobs for women in that budget? Where are the improved health conditions for women in that budget? Where is the personal security for women in that budget? They cannot even walk the streets of Canberra at night, and Mr Connolly ought to be absolutely ashamed of that. I think the bottom line is, when we are talking about commitment to the interests of women: How many women officers does the Chief Minister have on her staff? My case rests.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.26): I think his case collapsed, actually, Madam Speaker; I think it is having a terminal rest. At the outset of my remarks today, I want, as did Mr Kaine, to take members' minds back to 1989 and the first of the Labor governments in the ACT. Mr Kaine said, and he was absolutely wrong, that he initiated the women's budget statement. I released a women's budget statement in 1989 and that is the document which I will table for Mr Kaine's edification. He clearly has not read it. He is wrong. I would refer members also to the debate on the Appropriation Bill in 1989. As I have said, I did in fact issue a women's budget statement and in 1989 I had a number of programs aimed at assisting women.
In the debate on the Appropriation Bill, Mr Stefaniak - I believe that he is a member of the Liberal Party - moved, in the course of debate, to delete those women's programs from the budget. I will quote from the Hansard of November 1989 in which Mr Stefaniak says, and I will read in part:
There are three items there anyway: antidiscrimination activities ...; women's enterprise service ...; and women's employment strategy ...
Those are the three he identifies, and then he goes on:
In relation to the women's enterprise service and the women's employment strategy, I believe both those are unnecessary items of expenditure and that $200,000 can be saved there, totalling a quarter of a million dollars.
He had included in that the anti-discrimination money as well. He continues:
Those are the areas, I submit to the Assembly, in the Chief Minister's Department where money can be saved and the amount of expenditure reduced accordingly.
So the hypocrisy of the Liberals in even broaching this subject defies all belief. The hypocrisy of their broaching it at a time when we are in a Federal election campaign where their party in government has sworn to demolish the Office of the Status of Women just defies belief. It absolutely defies belief. Nevertheless, I will address my remarks to the substance of the issue, which Mr Kaine quite clearly did not.
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