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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (8 April) . . Page.. 720 ..

Ms McRae: Mr Speaker, on a point of clarification or a point of order: Does "nugget" refer to Kentucky Fried Chicken or pure gold, may I ask?

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR HUMPHRIES: If you mean that your heads are full of hard, cold metal, I might accept either of those explanations. Mr Speaker, I say to the members of the Assembly that this was telegraphed quite clearly and forthrightly by the Chief Minister and Treasurer some time ago. No member before today, to my knowledge, has come back and said publicly, "You people are not going to bring down a full-year budget. We are going to have a part-year budget only". Nobody made that clear. Mr Speaker, I think it is incumbent on members not to pull the rug out from under the Government - - -

Mr Whitecross: I said it on the public record when she announced it. You just were not paying attention.

MR HUMPHRIES: Would you please pay attention to me, Mr Whitecross?

Mr Whitecross: You just were not paying attention, Gary.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR HUMPHRIES: Goodness me! They have not had their Weeties today, have they, Mr Speaker? Would you just let me get a word in edgeways. We have a full-year budget prepared. Do us the courtesy of letting us bring it down in those circumstances. You will see considerable benefits. Do not take my word for it. Listen to your own former leader, because the arguments for a budget to apply for a full year are very potent.

Do not forget also that this is not an estimates committee which does the work of ordinary estimates committees by the standards of this Assembly. We are not looking at both outcomes and budget provisions. We are looking only at budget provisions.

Ms McRae: It still takes time, and we have never had enough of it.

MR HUMPHRIES: It ought to be a much shorter process as a result.

Ms McRae: It never is.

MR HUMPHRIES: I would suggest to the woman across there who is being so vocal at the moment that she go back and have a look at the questions that have been asked in estimates committees for the last couple of years. Go back and look at the work that was being done in those committees. For a very substantial proportion - I would suggest probably half - of the sessions I attended, half of the time that was taken up by the committee was in a review of the results of the previous year; what the Government did in that year; what was happening in that year; and what was the outcome. I would estimate that approximately half of the work was of that nature. That work is coming out now. We are looking at budget estimates for the coming year. That should result in a very different workload for the committee at that time.

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