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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 203 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the Woden Valley Hospital Information Bulletin on Patient Activity Data for December 1995.

MS McRAE: Mr Speaker, I ask for leave to present a petition which does not conform with the standing orders as it does not address the Assembly or contain a request.

Leave granted.

MS McRAE: I present an out-of-order petition from 315 residents concerning care for children with disabilities.

MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Ms Follett proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:

The disastrous impact on the Canberra community of the first year of the ACT Liberal Government.

MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (3.41): Mr Speaker, in the year since Mrs Carnell's Government took office, the Canberra community has been subjected to reduced services, increased costs, industrial chaos and a diminished quality of life for all of our citizens, especially the most disadvantaged. Over the past year this Government has in fact deserted the Canberra community. It has broken 32 specific promises. Many other promises have not yet been fulfilled, and there is little indication that this Government is likely to deliver over the next two years. In fact, I have given them the benefit of the doubt on that. The track record to date does not give the community a great deal of confidence that the Government will keep those promises either. Broken promises, in fact, are the hallmark of this Government. It is a result of waste and mismanagement. It is ironic indeed that the Liberals promised better management and that they would use commonsense, not ideology. Yet they have delivered the most secretive and most ideologically driven government that this Territory has ever seen.

A little later, I will detail some of the promises that this Liberal Government has broken, but first I would like to comment on the objective evidence available of the impact of the Liberals on the Canberra community. Some of the economic indicators show how the Canberra community is being made to pay for this Government's waste and mismanagement. The ACT economy, as measured by state final demand, has shrunk, and you have to look only at the Bureau of Statistics information to realise that that is the case. These are the hard facts. Business confidence has fallen. I quote from the Canberra Times of Monday, 19 February:

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