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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1531 ..

Debate resumed.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, the Government was already willing to move on the long-term unemployed because the arguments in that area put by members of the Assembly were good; but to move further again, at an extra cost of $280,000, on top of the cost for the long-term unemployed that we had not budgeted for, is simply impossible without actually cutting services. Where else are we going to get the money from? The budget is down. We have allocated the revenue that we thought we would get from this particular piece of legislation. If we extend it again by $280,000, I do not believe that we can do it without reducing the level of service that the very people, I suspect, that Ms Tucker is trying to help actually avail themselves of. Are we looking at cutting education or health - again, services that the people of Canberra want? I do not believe that this is a very sensible approach. It is a money Bill, Mr Speaker. We have a budget in place. To spend, in a fairly ad hoc fashion, over a quarter of a million dollars on top of what we have already given I do not believe is appropriate. I certainly do not believe that it is the sort of decision that this Assembly should take.

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (5.02): Mr Speaker, the Opposition will be supporting Ms Tucker's amendment, for the reasons I have already articulated. It would have been preferable to have gone down the path that we proposed before. We welcome Ms Tucker's amendment, because it is an attempt, within the framework of the rebate approach, which the majority of members here seem to prefer, to pick up Labor's suggestion of extending the concession to the full range of disadvantaged persons, rather than restricting it to pensioners, as originally proposed by Mrs Carnell, or to pensioners and people who have been unemployed for more than 12 months, as she now proposes.

Mr Speaker, quite frankly, I think Mrs Carnell insults the intelligence of members in this place if she suggests that in a budget of $1.4 billion she has got down to the last quarter of a million dollars before it has even been passed. Mr Speaker, last year she gave us a budget where she said that she was going to raise $10m from stamp duty on marketable securities, and she has raised $31m so far. Mr Speaker, this year she is budgeting to raise $15m from a tax for which she has raised $31m in the current financial year. I do not think Mrs Carnell adds anything to her credibility when she comes into this place and suggests that she has got this budget down to the last quarter of a million dollars.

Mr Wood: We can spend money on stadiums like that.

MR WHITECROSS: That is right. If the mood takes her, Mrs Carnell decides - - -

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