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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2332 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

the Government. There is nothing unusual in a committee making recommendations to the Government. Even despite the fact that that was a unanimous report, what we saw from the Government was a complete defiance of the Estimates Committee's will. In other words, the Government completely failed to take up the key recommendations of the Estimates Committee in relation to the budget. Those recommendations related to the education budget, to mental health, to the policing of illegal dumping and, very importantly, to the mandatory reporting of child abuse.

In their response to the Estimates Committee's report, the Government did address two of those matters, and I will give them full credit for having done that. In relation to the mandatory reporting of child abuse, the Government has indicated that it will supplement the budget in time. I accept that commitment by the Government. In relation to the policing of illegal dumping, the Government has pointed to the provision of some funds - scarcely adequate - to address that problem. In relation to the other two serious matters, one of which has been the source of constant debate and constant disagreement in this Assembly - the education and the health budgets - the Government has completely defied the Assembly's will.

It was not just a matter of the Government denying the Estimates Committee's position. When the Assembly again voted that the Government take away the Estimates Committee's report and reconsider their position, the Government came back to this Assembly yet again and said, "Forget it. We do not care what you think; we do not care what the majority of this parliament believes. We will stick with the budget as we have it". I believe that that kind of action by a government of any persuasion demonstrates the height of arrogance. It demonstrates to me that this Government simply does not care what the rest of the Assembly believes. Even if this had been a majority government, that would have been a serious situation. But what we have here, and what we have always had in this Assembly, is a minority government.

It is clearly up to this Assembly - we have the numbers - to tell the Government how they should act, and that is what the Assembly has done. They have told the Government to go away, reconsider those two aspects of their budget, and come back with changed provisions. That was clearly the intention of this Assembly, and what we have seen is that the Government has completely failed to act. They have come back and said, "We are sticking with our original position, despite all the evidence to the contrary. We are sticking with our funding of education and of mental health, despite the clear inadequacies of that funding", as has been demonstrated over and over again.

The motion is, I regret to say, brought about by the Government's complete failure to act, not surprisingly, given this Government's complete failure to live up to any of its election promises. The most obvious promise and the one the Canberra community has noticed across all areas of the Government was the promise of an open and consultative style of government. Nowhere is this Government's failure more obvious than it is in that area. This Government is the most secretive government the ACT has ever had. To illustrate this point further, we have legislation before the Assembly that will make even the contracts of employment of senior executives in the public service secret documents, available only to the Government. I repeat: This is the most secretive government the ACT has ever seen.

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