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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2650 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

The Chief Minister told us about some of the objectives in this year's budget at the Federal level. We have to get rid of this $8 billion budget deficit that the Labor Party created and at the same time, as I heard the Chief Minister say, economic growth will continue to be strong, inflation will be firmly controlled, investment is expected to remain strong - and that is what will determine our future - and employment growth will be moderate. So, this Federal Government is taking a responsible course of action, which is maintaining the essential elements of our economy and creating a new foundation on which, in the next few years, it can build a healthy economic and financial Australia again.

All that these people over there do is whinge and complain. They will not recognise the fact that it was 13 years of irresponsibility at the Federal level under Labor that created the situation. It is like Mr Kennett in Victoria. They whinge and complain about what Mr Kennett has had to do down there; but Mr Kennett did what he had to do after yet another rampaging Labor government left the State in tatters. You can hardly say that Victoria is in tatters today. It is in a far better economic and financial situation. Even Mr Whitecross has to acknowledge that. So will the Federal economy be in three or four years' time. So much for the Federal situation that Mr Whitecross tried to attack!

There are major similarities between that and our economy. The Chief Minister and Treasurer is, right now, struggling to make good five years of financial and economic mismanagement by another Labor government - one which left us, at the time of the last election, with not one cent of reserve money left. We had spent the lot. Not only had we spent all the reserve money; but our Consolidated Fund was down to virtually zero. In other words, the Territory was virtually insolvent. Yet they could not cut down the expenditure side of the budget. The expenditure side of the budget still kept going up, just like at the Federal level. Their attitude was, "We do not care about cutting down the expenditure side of the budget. We shuffle the books. We defer this. We take windfall gains there. Then, at the end of the day, we claim responsible financial management". There was no responsible financial or economic management in this Territory over the last five years of Labor government.

The Chief Minister and Treasurer and the Government sitting before me today have the same problem here in the Territory as John Howard and his Government have at the Federal level and as Kennett had in Victoria five years ago. They have to deal with the economic and financial chaos that several Labor governments have left behind. I cannot accept this business of Opposition members sitting over there, carping and whingeing and complaining about the things that have to be done to get our economy in good shape and to get our financial management under control, when they themselves created the position that we are trying to deal with. It is interesting, is it not? We saw it in Western Australia; we saw it in South Australia; we saw it in Victoria; we are now seeing it at the Federal level; and we are suffering from the same problem ourselves. They are exactly the same circumstances. Governments, year after year, would not do the things that had to be done to keep the economy in good shape and would not take the hard decisions that keep our financial management within reasonable bounds. Then they sit there and whinge and complain and accuse people of doing things that are not good for Canberra.

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