Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1834 ..

Mr De Domenico: No; we saw. We have already heard the speech.

MR WHITECROSS: Mr Speaker, when Mrs Carnell was speaking, the only people I heard talking were Mr Kaine and Mr De Domenico. I still hear only Mr De Domenico.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Whitecross, I uphold your request for silence. Mrs Carnell was heard in silence, although there was extraneous conversation going on all over the chamber. Continue.

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, it was a fairly limp apology for what the Commonwealth imposed on the ACT. It is a bubble which it is necessary for us to burst if we are to get a proper understanding of what is going on here.

Mrs Carnell started off by wheeling out the nonsense about the $8 billion budget black hole long after the Commonwealth gave up on the black hole. Long after they admitted that it was based on a false set of numbers, long after new numbers which show that there is not an $8 billion budget gap came out, this Government is still wheeling out the tired old argument about a budget black hole, to excuse the Commonwealth's decision to reduce funding to the States. What an extraordinary effort! Mrs Carnell admittedly has a hard job excusing the Commonwealth. This is a really unnecessary and unprecedented attack on public expenditure. Even Peter Costello is not making any secret of the fact that he just wants to cut $8 billion. He is not worried about whether there really is a budget hole or not. He just wants to cut $8 billion. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell would do well to update her rhetoric on this, because Mr Costello is about small government, about not providing government services; he is not about plugging a mythical budget black hole.

Mrs Carnell also included in her statement this absolutely amazing defence of what the Commonwealth did in seeking to reduce grants to the States:

Approximately one-half of this was required to fund the real per capita guarantee of the previous Labor Government.

In other words, the bad previous Labor Government promised to guarantee real per capita funds to the States and the poor Liberal Government had to reduce our funds in order to fund the real per capita guarantee. What sort of nonsense is that? The Federal Government has cut our allocation and Mrs Carnell is trying to say that this was a necessary thing; that this was required because the previous Labor Government had made a perfectly sensible guarantee to the States and Territories on real per capita funding.

Mrs Carnell: But then they could not fund it.

MR WHITECROSS: Mrs Carnell says that they could not fund it, once again defending her Liberal colleagues' decision to reduce funding. It is indeed a very lame attempt by Mrs Carnell to defend the indefensible - a reduction to the States and Territories and the tearing up of an agreement made last year.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .