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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3474 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

You may recall the editorial about this issue in the Canberra Times on 22 September. It said:

A government confident that it is working to proper ends will know that a community will not begrudge it fine buildings which encapsulate a sense of organised public purpose to perform necessary functions for all.

In terms of the Magistrates Court, I think the Government should really reconsider their position on this sale and lease-back arrangement, this mortgaging and borrowing of money. The Canberra Times went on to say:

... that such deals can be constructed in such a way as to be attractive and profitable to the private sector underscores the fact that the silver is being let go to pay the household bills.

Indeed, Mr Speaker, that has proved to be the case in this budget. The editorial went on to say:

It is one thing to dispose of buildings which are no longer necessary ...

Selling assets or Territory goods that are no longer necessary to raise money does not fit into this category of borrowing. Selling assets that are no longer necessary is indeed an appropriate way. If that were what you are doing we would say, "Yes, this is an alternative", but this selling and lease-back arrangement is simply a form of borrowing. This is a budget that is actually borrowing money. The editorial continued:

It is another to put continuing major public assets, of symbolic as well as practical use, into the pawn shop. The very idea shows an incredible poverty of spirit.

Mr Speaker, there are many times when I disagree with what the Canberra Times editorials say, but on this occasion I think they really have put their finger right on the spot.

One of the issues for this parliament when we came over to this Assembly building was to ensure that we were not in leased premises. I and other members of the Assembly had found it irksome that a parliament was in a building leased from some body over which, effectively, the parliament had power, but in a symbolic sense the leaseholder could hold that parliament under their control. A similar situation applies to the Magistrates Court. I challenge the selling of certain buildings. Some buildings can be sold, and I think you have referred to Macarthur House as one possibility. In that case I see it as borrowing; but, if that is what your budget is, and that is what you are going to do, fine. I see the Magistrates Court as a very different issue. Mr Speaker, what I have tried to argue so far today is that the Government is trying to gild the lily. It is trying to present something heading in one direction as something entirely different. The reality is that what it is doing is borrowing.

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