Page 3482 - Week 11 - Thursday, 14 October 1993
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Mr Lamont: No; because you are irresponsible.
MR KAINE: No, we are not irresponsible. That is interesting. You accuse us of being irresponsible about some things. We closed the Royal Canberra Hospital to save money in the budget. Part of the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital involved the 3c a litre on fuel. As has been pointed out already, that was to be for two years only, to raise about $25m over a two-year period as part of the cost of restructuring the hospitals. The hospitals that we set about to restructure for the better are being restructured by this Government for the worse - they are getting worse by the day - and you are still collecting the $25m from the petrol excise. You are having it both ways. You are screwing up the hospital system and you are still collecting the tax that we put on on a one-time basis for a period of two years only, and you say that you cannot live without it.
Ms Follett: Why did you not put it in the hospital bank account?
Mr Lamont: "Oh, I had not thought of that".
MR KAINE: Mr Lamont is prattling away here about responsibility. Responsibility would have meant taking the tax off at the end of the two years, which was the commitment that we gave, and reducing your budget expenditure in some other fashion.
Mr Lamont: Did Mr Humphries tell you about the $26m?
MR KAINE: I know about the $26m. I am telling you about the $26m, Mr Lamont. In fact, I very much question the $26m because I understand that Mr Humphries's motion has to do with only the one-and-a-quarter cents that is being put on this year.
Mr Lamont: Oh no, Mr Kaine.
MR KAINE: If you do your sums, Mr Lamont, I think you will find that that one-and-a-quarter cents works out to about $3.5m or $4m, not $26m.
Mr Lamont: No. His motion will stop $26m. He is the $26m man.
MR KAINE: That is what you say. I suggest that you go and do your homework, Mr Lamont, and find out what this debate is really about.
Madam Speaker, it does the Government, and particularly Mr Connolly, no credit to be lecturing the Opposition about responsibility in a case like this. He is showing no responsibility at all. His answer to the problem, instead of fixing it, is simply to whack on another one-and-a-quarter cents tax. It is unacceptable. I would like to see the Minister exercise some responsibility. I would like to see him justify and explain how it is that putting another one-and-a-quarter cents a litre on the price of petrol is going to deal with the problem. He jumped on his white horse a few months ago and said, "I am going to fix it", and all he does is put one-and-a-quarter cents a litre tax on, over and above all the taxes that were there before. That is not responsible, it is not sensible, and the Government would do well to admit it. It was merely justification for jacking up their revenues by another $3m to $4m. That is what it was about.
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