Page 2103 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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This Government talks about its AAA credit rating. What the Government does not realise is that AAA in this case stands for "all arse about". That is what this is all about. It is about putting the short-term decisions to the top of the queue and leaving the long-term decisions, the important decisions, for another day. Even the new initiatives undertaken in this budget, Madam Speaker, have a certain second-hand flavour about them. The ACT's periodic detention centre, for example, is something that we have certainly welcomed, but I seem to recall that there was great resistance to it over the last few years by this very Government. The Government seems to be about cutting off all the possible areas of contention, areas where it might suffer some disadvantage at the coming election. Again, it is all about next year's election; it is about buying votes. I think the centre is a good idea. In fact, I am flattered that they have gone down that path.
The other important area is big bins, the same big bins that, according to Ms Follett and Mr Wood, were "disastrous for recycling", and about which they said, "No government acting in an environmentally responsible way would contemplate the introduction of big bins". These are the big bins that today have been promised by the Follett Government. These are the same big bins. Madam Speaker, what utter cynicism, to put forward to the people of the ACT that they are getting the big bins that they all understand and have wanted for some time, but modify the bins to make it look as though the Government is putting in something different from what was talked about three years ago. We know that that is not the case.
Madam Speaker, there are important initiatives in the alternative budget put forward by Mrs Carnell, and one of the most important of those is that 3c reduction over a three-year period in the petrol franchise fee in the Territory. Everybody knows that higher petrol prices in this Territory are a major disincentive to employ. Businesses which employ need petrol, in almost all cases, and those businesses have a major difficulty in employing more people when they are paying high overheads. The fact of life is that government is historically responsible for higher petrol prices in the ACT. Mr Connolly's own review of petrol prices a year or so ago proved that, and therefore it is government which should be primarily responsible for bringing those prices down. Mrs Carnell has indicated for the first time an equitable and fair-to-all way of doing just that, not the "Let us play favourites in the marketplace" kind of approach which Mr Connolly has taken in this place and which stands condemned.
I turn, Madam Speaker, to the important question of the police budget. One aspect worthy of comment is the shoddy treatment given to law enforcement under this budget. In the last few years appropriations to our police have decreased dramatically. This budget is no exception to that. Mr Connolly made reference yesterday to a so-called increase of $290,000 in his police budget. I am afraid that I cannot find that $290,000, and I do not think he can either. The real story is very different. Our police, as a result of this budget, will simply have to do with less, and that is in the face of a situation where crime is rising at a rate of about 12 per cent a year. You would think, with increases of crime at that level, that you would be looking at increases in the police budget at that level; but no. You would think that at least you would be having a stabilised police budget; but no. We have, in fact, in real terms, a cut in the police budget.
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