Page 454 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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We also, of course, realise that, if the maxim is "You can make a mistake once", then Mr Berry has certainly exceeded the tolerance of any fair-minded person by making it not once, but three times.
Mr Connolly: So you made a mistake only once; you had only one budget.
MR HUMPHRIES: That might be. You never know what would have happened if I had stayed in power, do you, Mr Connolly? We do know that Mr Berry has been in power now for, I think, four budgets and Mr Berry has notched up, to his discredit, four budget blow-outs.
Ms Follett: It is three.
MR HUMPHRIES: It is only three, is it? It is only three budget blow-outs. Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the admission from the Chief Minister. "Only three budget blow-outs", says the Chief Minister. I stand corrected; it is three budget blow-outs. Madam Speaker, we heard Mrs Carnell in silence; I hope that you can give me the same benefit. We heard Ms Follett as well.
Claims about the Federal Opposition's policy on health are equally ill founded. Mr Berry has a fixed idea here. It is an idea which obviously he inherited or developed quite some time ago, probably several decades ago, about what Liberals do in government, and it has not shifted. No matter how all the facts around him have changed, it has not shifted at all. The fact is that what is happening here today in Federal politics, in health, is a quite unusual turn of events. It is a quite dramatic turnaround as far as the normal course of events is concerned because the Liberal Party is saying, "If you are rich and you happen not to have private health insurance, you are going to have to pay through the nose". I make no bones about it, Madam Speaker; it is true that for rich people in this community or anywhere else in Australia who do not have private health insurance Fightback will be, in the health area at least, a bit of bad news. There is an admission for you. It will be bad news. That is because we believe fundamentally in the principle that if you are rich enough to pay for private health insurance you should be paying for it and you should be contributing more fully to the cost of health provision in this country.
Mr Berry: It is a shonk. Do not argue with it; it is a shonk.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry says that it is a shonk, but he cannot point to a single thing, which just proves what I say - except his inherited and obviously deep-seated belief that we are somehow going to support the rich and tax the poor. The fact of life is that that is not what Fightback says. You cannot point to a single word anywhere in here which supports that contention and, in fact - - -
Mr Berry: GST?
MR HUMPHRIES: Health is zero rated, Mr Berry; there is no GST on health. The fact of life is that this document disproves every word that he has said. Fightback is good news for the poor. Fightback is good news because they benefit. They are the ones who get the highest rates of tax rebate. A single person earning less than $12,000 gets a tax credit of $200 a year, and it is $400 for a family.
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