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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 211 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

One of the most telling points for a previous government that believed that they did the right thing by public servants is that a total of 1,019 ACT public servants - - -

Ms Follett: We are talking about your Government, Mrs Carnell, that you never want to talk about. You never want to talk about your own performance.

MR SPEAKER: How many was that, Chief Minister?

MRS CARNELL: A total of 1,019 ACT public servants were retrenched under the previous Government, at a cost of $38m to the Territory. And guess what, Mr Speaker? The number of people in the ACT government service decreased by 350. So we paid for 1,019 public servants to leave the public service at a cost to taxpayers at $38m for a reduction of only 350.

Ms Follett: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. This is an opportunity for Mrs Carnell to address the issue which is before the Assembly, which is the performance of her own Government.

MRS CARNELL: Which I have done.

Ms Follett: I think that relevance does arise here. So far we have had over 10 minutes from her on the previous Government. Has she nothing good to say of her own Government, or does she share the view of her Ministers who have fled?

MR SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. The Chief Minister is addressing her remarks on this matter of public importance the way she sees fit.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, just to clarify what I have already said, I have spoken about waiting lists going down by 107 since we took office. I have talked about building approvals going up for the last six months. I have talked about an increase of 5,300 jobs. I have spoken about a situation where more people are being treated in our hospitals than were treated previously. It strikes me that that is a quite definite addressing of the principles here. I have spoken about our tourism industry recording a 5.2 per cent increase in takings and a 5.1 per cent increase in guest arrivals. I have also said, Mr Speaker, that we do not think it is good enough. We simply have to do better than this if we are going to have jobs for our kids in this city.

We have made some very difficult decisions as well - something that never happened under the previous Government. Certainly, it is not fun to have to close a health centre. Why did we close it? Because there were no services in it. We were not in the business of keeping half-empty or three-quarters-empty health centres open. We want to spend the precious dollars that this community has for areas such as health, community services and others on services, not on half-empty buildings. Certainly, the easy part for any government is spending more money. The reality is that we inherited a situation where we had to spend less, and we have done it. We have taken the bull by the horns on this; we have made the hard decisions that should have been made under the previous Government.

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