Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2434 ..

Mr Berry: You do not have the guts to answer the question.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr VITAB sold us down the tube for $3.3m. Mr Wood and Ms Tucker, this Government has come clean with its election commitment of $5m extra to promote Canberra, and it is working.

MR WOOD (8.59): Just to show how Mr De Domenico likes to twist things to suit a spurious argument he propounds, he says nothing happened on the Speedrail proposal until they got elected. That is simply not the case. The former Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, provided $50,000 as part of a feasibility study. Things did start to happen when there was a change of government in New South Wales. That was the change. When Bruce Baird went, with his fixation on the tilt train, Carr came in and said, "We will relook at the issue of Speedrail", and they provided money to do so. That is the difference. Where once you had the ACT, and the Commonwealth in some measure, prepared to have a good look at it, it was effectively vetoed because of the attitude of the former New South Wales Government. That is the case, and Mr De Domenico knows it. To claim that his Government got something up and running is just twaddle, and he knows it; but I suppose he has to posture.

Let us take a look at the case of employment. Mr De Domenico correctly asserts that in the forward estimates of Labor's last budget there was no allocated item for these particular programs, and that is quite appropriate. He tries to pass the buck for knocking off millions of dollars worth of programs by saying that it was not in the former ACT Labor Government's program. Those programs were designed, almost year by year, in accordance with the needs in that community. That was the nature of the programs. They were very clearly of that type, and that is why they could stop very suddenly.

Mr De Domenico: Yes, on election day.

MR WOOD: Go back and see. It was over a period of years, Mr De Domenico. That funding was provided as the need demanded. The need is still there, but you will not fund it. You will not do anything. Once again, the Minister simply obfuscates and tries to disguise the real intent of this budget.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (9.01): I would like to say very quickly, for the record, that Ms Follett, I think, secretly put $75,000 into the tilt train.

Mr Wood: On a point of order: The Chief Minister might indicate how much Ms Follett put into Speedrail.

MRS CARNELL: It was $50,000.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .