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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 4068 ..

Mr Whitecross: You would have been myopic if you had got some of those chemicals in your eyes.

Mr Berry: You would have had to wash them out for 15 minutes with water.

MR DE DOMENICO: I am suggesting to you, Mr Berry, that you put in for preselection for Fraser, go up there on the hill and see how they treat you up there. That is my advice to you. Secondly, next year actually read the budget. If you do not understand it, come and ask questions. There are people all over the place who will give you some advice on the budget. We will give you advice on the budget. There is one thing that the Opposition does not realise. We are the first government, State or Federal, to present a full accrual accounting budget - - -

Mr Whitecross: No, it is not full.

MR DE DOMENICO: Almost full accrual. So that I am not accused of misleading the Assembly, it is an almost full accrual accounting budget lauded by every accounting organisation that I am aware of. Yet this mob opposite concentrate on goggles, Subarus and meal allowances. Shame on you! Is it any wonder that Mr Moore, even though he is not 100 per cent happy with us, asks what the alternative is? There is none.

MR MOORE (11.17): It is interesting that Mr Berry should call me a conservative. I believe that it is the first time ever I have been called that, and I thank him for that. But it is ironic that the person calling me a conservative and drawing attention to somebody driving a Subaru is the very same person who, as a Minister in the First Assembly, drove around in a Fairlane. What could be more conservative than a Fairlane and how does that compare to a Subaru? I had no problem with him driving around in a Fairlane. I had no problem with Mr Kaine, when he was Chief Minister, driving a Statesman. I had no problem with those people having those vehicles, just as I have no problem with Mr Walker driving around in a Subaru.

Mr Speaker, it seems to me that there is one other factor in this line of the budget that we ought to talk about, and that is the Legislative Assembly.

Mr Humphries: Relevance, Mr Speaker.

MR MOORE: The risk I face is that somebody will pull me up on the ground of relevance! In the Schedule we see that the net cost of outputs is $3.179m and the payments on behalf of the Territory are $2.451m. It seems to me that this Assembly has been very innovative in many ways in a whole series of areas. Mrs Carnell took some pride in the fact that in this budget we moved to accrual accounting. It seems to me that as an Assembly we ought to be able to find a way to separate the Assembly budget from the Government budget. It has always seemed to me that because the Assembly gets its budget from the Government it creates the impression, and indeed the fact, that in some senses the Assembly is effectively subject to the Government. We really have the opportunity here in this Assembly to find a better way of going about that.

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