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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3489 ..

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.26), in reply: Mr Speaker, I will also be very brief in completing this debate. A number of the things that have been said are very interesting. Certainly, I have to say that not much was said from those on the opposite side of this place today. The comment that has been made quite consistently is that our approach - which they have described as sell, sell, sell - is an unacceptable approach. I wonder whether they really believe that borrow, borrow, borrow - - -

Mr Whitecross: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Was Mrs Carnell referring to the Canberra Times when she talked about people erroneously accusing her of saying "sell, sell, sell"?

MR SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order, Mr Whitecross.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, it is certainly true that Mr Whitecross and all the people who have spoken have been somewhat critical of the sale of assets that is part of this budget. I wonder whether they are more positive - no-one was actually willing to tell us - about significant borrowings. We would have had to borrow $100m if we had not sold or refinanced assets. That would have come at an interest cost of some $8m a year. On top of that, of course, we would have had an extra $100m debt.

Do they believe that a $100m cut in the ACT public sector is the appropriate approach? A $100m cut in a budget of $1.3 billion is an enormously big cut. Remember that over 50 per cent of our budget comes in health and education. Health and education would have to take a quite significant cut on that basis. So, too, would other areas such as family and community services. Mr Speaker, we did not believe that that was an appropriate approach. I am fascinated that others in this house seem to believe that it is. I suppose we could have put up taxes.

Ms McRae: You did.

MRS CARNELL: We could have put them up by $100m. Ms McRae makes the comment that we did. We certainly did put up some taxes by, I think, on average about 2 per cent. There were a couple of new taxes which took us to just under 4 per cent altogether. What is really interesting is that $100m worth of extra taxes would require an increase of about 15 per cent. Are those opposite suggesting that a 15 per cent increase in tax is all right? If we get the $100m from selling or refinancing some of our assets, we end up with no extra borrowings, a $10m cash surplus and being able to pay $15m off our debt. That is what happens if you go down the path that we have gone down. As well, you can build another $98.6m worth of assets to balance the assets that you are selling.

If we had not done that - and those opposite and those on the crossbenches all seem to believe that we should not have - then we would have ended up with $100m of extra debt, an interest bill of $8m and potential tax increases of 15 per cent. We could have ended up with significant reductions in our public sector. Everybody has been critical of the approach we have taken to assets, but not one speaker has been willing to comment on what they would do. I take Mr Moore's point. Mr Moore said, quite rightly, that he is on the crossbenches; he is not the alternative government. But there is an alternative government. It is those opposite. What we heard - - -

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