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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4059 ..

MR BERRY: Well, of course; it is fine. Have a look at the next press release. Go from one to the other. This is the one headed "Jobs for Canberra". This is a purler.

Mr De Domenico: Yes. The Bill you voted against this afternoon creates 80. Do not talk about jobs.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, that is yet to be seen. I do not believe that you will be able to produce the goods in due course, and you will pay the price for that. This press release refers to a "40 per cent increase in the value of new capital works". That was an absolutely phoney claim because it was a few percentage points. It was just a few percentage points. You lead with press releases like that and you wonder why people say that this is just a publicity stunt. You went on at great length about the accrual accounting scheme. Well, to use your term, Mrs Carnell, whoopee do. The issue here is: How do we compare it with last year and how do we compare it - - -

Mr De Domenico: No, the issue is that you do not know what it is.

MR BERRY: The Liberals opposite should never ever criticise us for not knowing about budgets. Mr Kaine will remember the first budget. He has accounting qualifications. I do not claim to have any. Remember the first budget in the ACT when we had to pull up and explain to Trevor what a line item was. We had a little interlude of 15 minutes and went through a bit of it, so do not talk to me about what we know about budgets and budgeting. You sing the praises of the accrual accounting system. Most of the people out there could not care less. They want to know about their services, access to health, mental health care, all those sorts of things, and Mrs Carnell is going on about the accrual accounting system. The Estimates Committee then had to work its way through the comparisons between this year's budget and last year's.

Mr Speaker, throughout this entire process the Government has treated the Estimates Committee with contempt. I am deeply disappointed at the attitude of the Independents, in particular, to the Government in this respect. They have to remember that if they vote for this budget they are giving an endorsement to the contempt that the Government holds for this place. They are just giving them an endorsement. The Government is so confident of their support that it reaches new heights of arrogance every time it approaches this Assembly in relation to any matter. It is getting worse. This is just another example of it. If the Independents vote for this budget and if the Greens vote for this budget, they have to know that every time a service falls in a heap, any time anything goes wrong, any time there is an asset sold, they share the blame.

Let us talk about a little bit more dishonesty in the Government's dealing with the Estimates Committee. We went to great lengths to discuss asset sales, sale and lease-back arrangements and those sorts of things. The Government was singing their own praises by saying, "We have provided more information to the Assembly and the world really than anybody else before. What are you whingeing about?". We were very curious about the sale of assets because it is like selling the family silver to buy the next meal. You know what happens when you run out of silver; you run out of food.

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