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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2458 ..

Mr Humphries: That is $1.1m under Labor logic.

MR DE DOMENICO: Under Labor accounting, that is $1.1m. Well, it is not. If Mr Whitecross had read the previous year's budget figures he would have realised that the cutback this year is less than the cutback that his Government made the year before.

Mrs Carnell: But the unions did not whinge then. I wonder why.

MR DE DOMENICO: The unions did not whinge then, of course. The unions were onside. The minority group of unions, the ones who went off in that Stalinist Left group that former Senator Richardson talks about time and time again, were onside. Mr Whitecross, before you stand up and criticise, get your facts right. Do your homework. You will learn after being here a little bit longer. That is point one on the libraries.

Mr Speaker, we need to talk about the libraries. It is not fair that, whilst other areas are expected to come in on budget, libraries, year in, year out, need to be replenished from other areas. It will not happen under this Government because libraries will be expected to do what everybody else is expected to do - to come in on budget. They can come in on budget and they will come in on budget. You will find, if you go out and talk to the majority of the people who work in the libraries, that they are quite happy to come in on budget, and will come in on budget.

What the Opposition did not talk about is some of the positive things that happen in Urban Services from time to time as well; but, then again, we are not here to talk about positive things, are we? No.

Ms McRae: Because that was last year.

MR DE DOMENICO: Ms McRae, of all people, will always whinge and moan. No matter how well anything is done, Ms McRae will always whinge and moan. We can understand that. She will continue to whinge and moan for as long as she is in opposition, which will be forever. She will continue to whinge and moan forever. One wonders what the people in Ginninderra think about people who represent them who continue to whinge and moan. They are whingers and moaners. They still have not been able to accept the fact that they are in opposition. We understand that. Finally, it will sink in, I am sure.

Let us have a look at the Urban Services budget. It is up $1.1m on 1994-95 for a start, on the outcome. There is additional spending of $3.9m covering a range of initiatives, including management of heavy vehicle parking. What did the former Government want to do about heavy vehicle parking? "Let us ban them all.", they said. What did the Transport Workers Union do? They said, "Listen, that is not the commonsense thing to do".

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