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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 778 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: You did, before the last election - - -

Mr Berry: We would not swagger in here and lie about it.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I said that I did not want interjections in this debate, and I meant it.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry and his party did project savings of $4m from VMO contract renegotiations before the 1995 ACT election. This Government has promised much more modest savings and has not been able to achieve them. What position would the Labor Party have been in today had it been returned to this side of the chamber? It is hypocrisy of the worst order to be censured for having set a fairly modest target and not having achieved it, when those who are moving the motion themselves were setting a target twice as ambitious and presumably would have been in exactly the same position of being unable to achieve it.

Mr Speaker, the comments I am making today are directed to the crossbenches, obviously, particularly to Mr Moore and Mr Osborne. I note that the Greens have supported every censure motion brought against the Government in this place up until now and none, incidentally, against the opposite side of the chamber - and there has been one.

Ms Tucker: We did. Yes, we did.

Mr Moore: Yes, they supported my censure motion against Rosemary Follett.

MR HUMPHRIES: You did support it? I withdraw that in that case. I say simply that they have supported every censure motion brought against this Government, and my conclusion from the comments by Ms Tucker on the ABC this morning is that they intend to support this one.

Let me say to those on the other side of the chamber, and on the other part of the crossbench, that moving this motion once again, and supporting it, constitutes a debasing of that currency which I have warned about on several occasions in the past. (Extension of time granted) I thank members. Moving this motion again detracts from the quality and the strength of a censure motion. Ms Tucker said on radio this morning that she hopes that Mrs Carnell will not ignore the motion. The fact is that every time you move a censure motion on unwarranted grounds you, yourself, contribute to a situation where governments can afford to ignore them. Every time a censure motion gets pushed back to page 3 or page 5 of the Canberra Times or the third item on the TV news, or whatever, it weakens the power of that device to make a point to the Government. If we are to be censured for having used a costing model which every other previous government in this place has used, and for making projections and promises, if you like, on the basis of that model, then so be it; but we are going to be very busy in future years under this Government, and under future governments, censuring governments very frequently for using inherited models.

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