Page 4008 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 23 November 1993
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MR CORNWELL: Whether tobacco sales are going up or not, once again we have this strange double standard, Madam Speaker, that whilst the Government, or at least Mr Berry, is violently opposed to cigarette consumption they are quite happy to take money out of it. I will not use a word that is unparliamentary, but let me say that it is a double standard. Madam Speaker, the other matters I would like to raise in relation to - - -
Mr Berry: Price is one of the great disincentives.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR CORNWELL: It does not matter. I am not worried about his gibbering, Madam Speaker. The other matters I would like to raise are not in the report. This is no fault of the committee, I hasten to add, but rather because we were not able to obtain the information we would have liked to obtain. I refer particularly to education. Despite quite intense efforts to obtain details of what was happening in terms of the cuts in education proposed in the budget, we were thwarted, frustrated, by a lack of information provided by the Government. That is still the case. Indeed, as we discovered this afternoon, we are still no further advanced than we were in the estimates in terms of where the 80 teachers are going to be cut or indeed what plans the Government has for the future, though we have made a very sensible recommendation, I believe, in relation to both education and health, Mr Berry, for future years.
The second area that I would like to refer to in respect of not being able to find out all the information - and this, I hasten to add, is not the fault of the Government - relates to the ACT Housing Trust. The reason we were not able to find out information relating to the trust, at least to my satisfaction, was simply that they have recently moved over to a new computer system, ISIP, which I understand comes from Victoria. Indeed, numbers of the programs are not yet in place and therefore it was not possible to provide the information. I would, however, like to place on record - as I am sure Mr Connolly is well aware - that I will be most vigorously and with alacrity chasing up the information in next year's estimates to see what has been achieved.
Mr Connolly: There is not a computer big enough to answer all your questions on the Housing Trust.
MR CORNWELL: Then you will just have to find one, Mr Minister, because I wish to pursue the question of voluntary deductions from social security payments. I think this is a step in the right direction - though I believe, nevertheless, that the Government is wrong in its approach, because I believe that the people who will agree to a voluntary deduction from their social security payments are people who are going to pay their rent anyway. I think that the people we have to address are those who are tardy and would not agree to such voluntary payments.
Mr Lamont: And when we have the money?
MR CORNWELL: After all, in spite of Mr Lamont's interjection, there is $5.5m outstanding in arrears. I would imagine that a government that is faced with considerable reductions in Commonwealth funding, as they have been telling us all this afternoon that they are, might like to chase up a not insignificant amount of money. I do not believe that any business in Australia, even large ones
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