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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3478 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

really in this budget. I hope, Mr Speaker, that all the pipedreams that they are presenting come true for the Government and for the ordinary people who are currently unemployed. I hope that their big gamble on borrowing pays off. This budget is borrowing to pay the bills and get jobs at any cost.

Mrs Carnell: So what would you do?

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I hear an interjection, the same interjection that they put to Mr Whitecross: What would you do? I am neither the Government nor the alternative government. I am not going to be distracted by them asking me what I would do. This is their budget. It is the one that we are criticising, and we are going to continue criticising it and the way it is presented. My criticism has primarily been about the way the Government have misrepresented and gilded the lily instead of telling the truth. I keep trying to find another word for hypocrisy, Mr Speaker. I am just going to have to find one, one of these days.

MR SPEAKER: You are going to have to do that, yes.

MR MOORE: I know. Mr Speaker, these people are the ones who said they were going to be an open government, an accountable government and a consultative government. They are the ones who have presented this budget about jobs in the way that they have and have gilded the lily. Mr Speaker, I suppose people will ask me why I will maintain a commitment to the budget as part of this Government. When I am asked what would I do, and I look at the alternative, I must say that if I go against this budget and I put the alternative government in I cannot see that they would do any better. Indeed, they might well do worse. Mr Speaker, my commitment was a three-year - - -

Ms Follett: What a cop-out!

Mr Humphries: What is your solution? Yours is a cop-out.

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I hear Mr Humphries again saying to everybody, "What is your suggestion?". No, Mr Humphries, this is your budget, and you are going to wear it. We are going to make you wear it, but we would like you to tell the truth. We would like you to present this in an open way.

Mr Speaker, Queensland once had a leader who believed that the end justified the means; jobs at any cost. "Jobs at any cost" was what he said on many occasions.

Mrs Carnell: It is the only State with no debt.

MR MOORE: "You just listen to me, girlie; you just listen to me", is the sort of thing he would say. Queensland once had a leader who said that sort of thing. He believed in the end justifying the means and said, "Jobs at any cost and development for all my mates". But that was long ago, of course, and it would not happen here.

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