Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2249 ..

Mr Moore: I take a point of order. I do not think this closes the debate. I think it is the same system. You can speak as many times as you like and, Mr Speaker, I think I am correct in saying that we can speak for two periods of 10 minutes.

MRS CARNELL: Okay, I do not close the debate.

Mr Moore: You will have a go at it, though.

MRS CARNELL: I will probably speak just once anyway. Mr Speaker, I speak at the end of this debate. I decided that I would give a prize. I have to say that the only prize I could possibly give as a result of this debate is to Mr Moore. The reason I would have to give a prize to Mr Moore - - -

MR SPEAKER: What about me?

MRS CARNELL: You did lead for a little while. Mr Speaker, the reason why Mr Moore gets a prize is that he is the only person in this whole debate, of those around here, who said how they would pay for the things that they want. What we have ended up with in this debate is the most amazing heap of rubbish I have ever heard. This is important. This budget was brought down in very difficult times. As the papers say, this budget has revenue of $1,439m. Unfortunately, we have expenditure of $1,649m. That tends to indicate an operating loss of $211m. So I would have thought, Mr Speaker, that in the budget debate the Government would have ended up with criticism and some helpful suggestions on what to do about the operating loss. I would have thought that this Assembly could have been very critical of the Government for coming down with an operating loss.

Mr Moore: Yes.

MRS CARNELL: And Mr Moore was. But I have to say that he was the only person. I would have thought that those opposite, the Opposition, would have been saying, "Government, this is definitely not good enough. You have to address the operating loss". But, no, Mr Speaker. We ended up with a budget debate in which everyone opposite came up with significant new expenditure. Mr Corbell wanted $15m for tourism promotion.

Mr Corbell: I did not say that, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: Yes, he did. He said that we should be spending the same amount as Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

Mr Corbell: Show me where I said that, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: He wanted $15m, Mr Speaker. On ACTION we ended up with the view that the cuts that the ACT Government has put in place are simply unacceptable. That is $10m, conservatively, Mr Speaker. On public housing, it was a minimum of an extra $5m because it was very naughty of us to let that $5.3m or $5.6m go to the Federal Government. We should have got it back and we should have spent it. If we spent it on public housing, Mr Speaker, we had to get it from somewhere else. So, Mr Speaker,

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .