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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (21 May) . . Page.. 1505 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

How can Mrs Carnell come out and say that this is a more open process and the Assembly can decide appropriately, on the basis of the evidence in front of them, where we should go from here? The fact of the matter is that we cannot. We are then faced with this position again: Acting under the Audit Act, which, of course, has the authority of this Assembly, Mrs Carnell cancels those capital works. The $14.2m expenditure on capital works is cancelled, and the reason it is cancelled is that it has now gone; it is going into Health, where this historic mismanagement has occurred. The worst ever has occurred. For Mrs Carnell to stand on her feet in this place and bleat that she has not cancelled capital works is quite untrue. She has. There has been a deliberate underspend in Urban Services to cover up for her health mismanagement.

What does the community get as a result? One thing they do not get is a possible 600 jobs. They are down the gurgler. At a time of crisis for the ACT, under Mrs Carnell we have 2,300 extra jobless on the unemployed list - 2,300 extra unemployed since she became Chief Minister of the ACT; we have instability in the small business sector; and we have Mr Howard threatening to come down on the Territory like a ton of bricks. Mrs Carnell's mismanagement has, in effect, hit the jobless again, because we have money coming out of capital works to support her mismanagement in Health.

A little while ago, across the chamber, we were being taunted, "Well, do not vote for the Appropriation Bill". Well, we never did, because we knew that it was a dud. We know that this one is a dud, too.

Mrs Carnell: You mean spending more money on health?

MR BERRY: We have never been wedded to it. Mrs Carnell harps from across the chamber, "You mean spending more money on health?". No; we mean mismanagement. We mean mismanagement and a dodgy process, because that is what we have in front of us - mismanagement and a dodgy process. (Extension of time granted)

For the Labor Party's part, there is clearly no need for this Appropriation Bill. It is a phoney process; it is not necessary. This Bill should have been withdrawn. I cannot understand how Ministers, in a government that they themselves describe as responsible, can come in here blush free and say that this is something new and more open. It is not. The evidence before the committee that inquired into it made it very clear that we were never going to discover anything about what was going to be spent and where it was coming from. That is the very clear situation, and the onus is, therefore, on other colleagues in this place to decide whether or not they are going to support this Appropriation Bill.

A technical argument has been waved around that, if you do not vote for an appropriation Bill that has been put forward by the Government, that is a vote of no confidence in the Chief Minister. Well, we would support a vote of no confidence in this Chief Minister, and that would not surprise anybody. But my view is that this opposition to this appropriation could not be so regarded. From our point of view, this ought to be opposed because it is a shonk. It is a shonk.

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