Page 3957 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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Mrs Carnell then jumped on the band wagon from the Opposition and moved an amendment to bring in the Treasurer as well. They are moving no confidence in two Ministers for doing what, Madam Speaker? For applying across-the-board savings targets to every program. For doing precisely what Mr Kaine did when he was in government and when he was Leader of the Opposition, and what Mrs Carnell, by interjection some minutes ago, said she agreed with. Mrs Carnell interjected and agreed that every program has to absorb its fair share of budget savings; that if we have to save across the board no program can be exempt. But, Madam Speaker, whereas the Liberal Party was once a party that perhaps had some fleeting attachment to principle, now we see it being the dog that is wagged by Mr Moore's tail here, jumping onto Mr Moore's absurd no-confidence motion and adding to it the Treasurer.
As Mr Berry interjected, it was not Mr Wood and Ms Follett who made these decisions for 2 per cent across the board; it was Ms Follett, Mr Berry, Mr Wood and I who made those decisions. We stood as a Cabinet and collectively made those decisions. We applied the cuts across the board. We have argued time and time again in this place in relation to some of my portfolios, in particular in the debates on the police budget, where I caught Mr Moore out. When another member was saying, "Ah, but the police budget should be different; we like police, so they should be different", Mr Moore said, "Oh, no; every program must be treated the same. Where you have to have a reduction in expenditure you must cut across the board because if you do not do that you are going to have to borrow heavily".
Mr Humphries: Not by the same amount, necessarily.
MR CONNOLLY: That was exactly the argument of fiscal rectitude that we put and, indeed, that the Liberal Party and the Liberal Party's then leader consistently put. Mr Humphries is now trying to wriggle out of that and no doubt will be running around to the Police Association and saying, "Oh, I would spend more on police".
Madam Speaker, at some stage when we get into the fruit-fly season, which is coming upon us, Mr Wood will have his inspectors out and about around the suburbs of Canberra checking for fruit-fly. They should be looking in the backyard of a house up the road from mine where Mrs Carnell lives. There is obviously a money tree growing in that backyard, because this Liberal Party gets up in this Assembly and says to every interest group in Canberra, "We will spend more money on that". Mr Humphries was on the radio the other afternoon, on the ABC Afternoon Show, and in the course of about 90 seconds he committed us to about $40m of expenditure. He was going to buy a helicopter, he was going to build a gaol, and he was going to spend more money on the police. That was all in the course of 90 seconds. Mrs Carnell, I should just about be able to see your tree by now; it must be getting that big. Mrs Carnell's approach to health is, "There is no problem that money cannot fix; just throw more money at the problem". What a brilliant deduction that was!
Now, as we get into the issue of the education budget, the Liberal Party is locking onto Mr Moore's nonsense that somehow we can just keep spending more money here. The Liberal Party, of course, understands that you have to balance expenditure and revenue measures, so in order to balance their constant diatribe
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