Page 1361 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 1993
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... there has to be some logical debate about where the major portfolio areas of health and education and policing go to. Who's going to run it? Are we going to give them to New South Wales to run? Will we have a better hospital system if it's run by some bureaucrats in Sydney, than having it run by some bureaucrats in the ACT? I think not. Is it going to cost any less? I think not. There's got to be some logic to the debate.
Hear, hear, Mr Kaine! He went on further, later in his interview:
... how do we get a fair deal from the Commonwealth financially if we remove ourselves from the very forums in which the major financial decisions are taken? The Premiers Conference, the Loan Council and the like. Who's going to represent us there? Are we going to go back to some Federal Member from Melbourne Ports representing us in the Federal Parliament in these issues? That didn't work too well.
I could not agree with you more, Mr Kaine. It is a pity you did not explain it to Mrs Carnell.
Madam Speaker, I am always ready to listen and to take suggestions about how we can do things better, and to enter into informed debate about alternative structures of government. I think that draws a very clear distinction between my own approach, my Government's approach, and that of Mr Stevenson and Mrs Carnell. They merely throw up slogans. They throw up slogans, as did Dr Hewson, and expect people to like it. Well, they do not. I suspect that this was the same slogan that was thrown up at the Liberals' summit, because as Mr Kaine also pointed out, and I will quote it:
Quite frankly ... I ... felt that she'd been to a different summit than I'd been to.
He was speaking of Mrs Carnell. So, Madam Speaker, quite clearly, we have some communication difficulties across the way there.
I take no immediate comfort from the suggestion that we should adopt a city council model. There are still costs associated with running a council, and, as we have seen, some quite high costs; in fact, higher than we currently have. There are still costs associated with all of the functions that that council must carry out. In fact, the Brisbane City Council, with a smaller budget than the ACT and actually carrying out only 15 per cent of the functions that we do, still has 25 aldermen and a lord mayor, and they all get paid more than ACT Assembly members do. Madam Speaker, I put it to you that this proposal is half-baked at best, although I expect that Mrs Carnell will wish to support it.
I might also take the opportunity, Madam Speaker, quickly to emphasise the advantages that the ACT gains from our own particular self-governing status. The ACT is an equal partner in the federation with the States and the Northern Territory, so we have equality as citizens and as a parliament. As Chief Minister I participate with the Premiers and the Northern Territory Chief Minister at the Council of Australian Governments and at the Loan Council and at Premiers Conferences. The benefits to the Territory which derive from this level of
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