Page 3237 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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At least 400 public sector jobs will go as a result of this budget ... The Treasurer assures us that no-one will be sacked ...
Much quivering of the voice, no doubt, accompanied this:
In 1990-91 over $6m is going to be spent in paying people out of the public service. This is a disaster for Canberra at a time when the employment outlook is very gloomy.
Mr De Domenico: And this is Rosie!
MR HUMPHRIES: That is right.
Mr De Domenico: Things are rosier now, aren't they?
MR HUMPHRIES: They sure are. She said:
There is some bad news hidden very deep in Mr Kaine's budget.
Madam Speaker, I need not remind members of this place that in the 1993-94 budget over $17m is going to be spent in paying people out of the public service. As I said, the stench of hypocrisy is absolutely amazing.
Mr Cornwell: They have gone quiet over there.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, they have gone strangely quiet. Madam Speaker, I also want to touch on the question of what people are paying for diesel fuel for use in their homes. Bristling with indignation, Ms Follett rose to say that we have got it wrong; that Mrs Carnell got it wrong. She said that there is not a high number of people in the ACT - a couple of hundred people perhaps; only a few people - who use diesel oil in their homes in order to heat them. She said, "No; you can sweep these people off to one side. They are of no significance. Do not worry about these people".
My office has spoken with only one of a number of people in the ACT who sell diesel fuel to householders for heating - to these insidious people who are pumping the fuel out of their home oil tanks into cars, semitrailers or something. He sells heating fuel to these people and he alone expects - or he did before this budget - in the coming year to sell one-and-a-half million litres of diesel fuel for home heating.
Mr Connolly: How much?
MR HUMPHRIES: One-and-a-half million litres. Those couple of hundred people - - -
Mr Connolly: They must be putting it in the tank and then siphoning it into their Land Rovers.
MR HUMPHRIES: Those couple of hundred people must use a lot of fuel. They must have houses like ovens. This person alone has 750 home user clients in the ACT. He estimates that there are something like not a couple of hundred but 3,000 homes in the ACT which use diesel fuel for home heating. I ask you this: Where is the tax on electricity? Where is the tax on people who use electricity for home heating in this Territory? Will that be in next year's budget?
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