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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2381 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

then there is a serious question about how they govern. You might say that it is only one line item, it is only one item in the budget. That may be the case, but the budget is the budget, and we view the integrity of the budget as a matter of an integrated whole. We would view the loss of any element of that budget as being a loss of confidence on the floor of the Assembly in our budget.

I think members in this place have all indicated their strong disapproval of our decisions on education, on public transport and on other things. We hear that message loud and clear. We are not unaware of the position that puts us in in respect of the relationships we have with other parties in this Assembly. We do not take lightly the fact that that is the case, but we do not intend to change the budget we have framed. We will go to the election of 1998, or whenever it might be held, on the basis of that budget, and, if people do not like it, then they can vote against us. If our budget and the succeeding two budgets succeed in achieving the changes we want to see in the financial security of this Territory over the next three years, we will be judged on the basis of that performance in the 1998 election. But that is the classic formulation of the capacity of a government to govern, that is, that it is able to bring down its budget in its entirety, to the last cent, and that is the way in which this Government is approaching this issue.

Let me make a comment about the Labor Opposition's position in this debate. They have ranted and raved about how they are standing up against the budget. I have not the slightest shadow of a doubt that, if there were members on the crossbenches prepared to support what I have characterised, and what I am sure the Labor Opposition accepts, as effectively a motion of no confidence in the Government, the Labor Opposition would back away from that position. They are prepared to take this grandstanding position in the confident knowledge that there are members on the crossbenches who promised to provide stable government and to deliver stable government in the form of allowing budgets to pass without being blocked. It is with the confidence of the knowledge that their effort to block the budget is futile that they have taken that position. If it were otherwise, if they could succeed in blocking the budget, I have no doubt that they would withdraw. They know that, of any government in the Territory, if this Government, following the election victory we sustained only eight months or so ago with the largest vote for any single party since self-government began, does not have a mandate to bring down this budget, no government ever has or probably ever will have. On that basis, it deserves the right to be able to pass this budget through the chamber.

This is not, as far as the Opposition is concerned, a test of their credentials about the budget or about education or anything else; it is a test of the credentials of Rosemary Follett's leadership, and everyone else can see that. She might think she is clothed in invisible clothing that says, "I can pretend I am just being tough. I can pretend I really care about education". The woman who oversaw four budgets that cut education nonetheless pretends that she can say that. Nobody is fooled by that.

Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: This seems as though it might have been a vote of no confidence in Rosemary Follett when she was Chief Minister. It is a bit late.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

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