Page 425 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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MRS CARNELL: Something that Mr Berry would know nothing about because he thinks secrecy is appropriate.
Mr Humphries: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. The Chief Minister's speech on this matter, which was made last week, was heard in silence.
Mr Lamont: It was not.
Mr Humphries: It was heard in silence. The Hansard clearly shows that there were no interjections during her speech. I would ask that the same courtesy be extended to the Leader of the Opposition on this matter.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Continue, Mrs Carnell.
MRS CARNELL: Our whistleblowers Bill will afford real protection to employees who disclose corrupt conduct or examples of wastage in the public sector. We hope to bring forward other amendments to reform defamation laws, occupancy loading laws, the Poisons and Drugs Act, the Landlord and Tenant Act, and a range of other commonsense pieces of legislation. Madam Speaker, I look forward to seeing whether the Chief Minister can deliver on the rhetoric she pumped out last week. We are certainly looking forward to seeing jobs for our young people. We are looking forward to seeing a better deal for our elderly and for our youth, but we are not holding our breath.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.27): Mrs Carnell's speech was typically unbalanced. It was leaning all one way, and it was a pretty bad direction in any event. It was, like many other speeches, one long whinge - carping, criticising and very cynical. It was populism in the extreme. Like the speech she delivered last year in response to the Chief Minister's budget, it picks on lots of areas where more money should be spent. But nowhere does she indicate where the revenue is coming from.
Mr Kaine: That is the Treasurer's job. This is the Treasurer's statement we are commenting on.
MR WOOD: This speech she made needs that balance. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously, she has to come up with serious propositions. We cannot have endlessly "Spend money", with no reference to the revenue for it. Indeed, in the speech on the budget and on other occasions she said that we should tax less. There is a very big gap in what she is providing.
Mr Kaine interjected a minute ago. I would pay Mr Kaine a compliment. When he was Chief Minister and then when he was Leader of the Opposition he was much more honest and up front with the ACT community. He did tell people, quite often, that something could not happen because the money was not there. Since Mrs Carnell has come into the job and we have a new strategy, new surveys, new advice - perhaps it is the same advice, but it has been taken up differently - the strategy has changed to: Say nothing hard, say everything easy. I think Mrs Carnell, and her party with her, will always be subject to criticism about where it is coming from. If she wants to be a serious contender in the election stakes next year, this community will demand to see how she is going to fund what she intends to do.
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