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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3957 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

It seems to me that the notion of a matter of public importance that talks about "the wrong priorities of the Carnell Liberal Government" was strange in the first place. Why was the word "wrong" used? Why was Mr Berry, in putting this up, not talking about misplaced priorities, different priorities or questionable priorities? Being wrong is usually not a matter of opinion; it is usually a matter of fact. It is a great shame that Mr Berry does not understand the distinction. That is why so regularly we apply to him the term "wrong", whereas to others - including others within the Labor Party to whom I have very rarely applied the term "wrong" - we simply apply the term "mistaken", perhaps "having misunderstood" or "having different priorities".

These priorities are not my priorities, and I think they are misplaced. The way they have spent money, I think, is misplaced. As far as I am concerned, there has been too much money put into the commercial and business sector and not enough money taken out of it. I mentioned earlier today that, as far as I am concerned, one of the ways we should take money from that sector is with a bed tax. I think there is much too much money spent on tourism. We should be taking money from tourism and using that to advertise, so that that sector gets the advantage but also makes a contribution to the sector. You could even take a proportion of the bed tax to do that, as they do in the Northern Territory. That, in turn, would release money for much more important priorities - for my money, particularly education and health. That is where the priorities should be.

Mr Whitecross also raised the issue of a strategic plan. Indeed, Mr Speaker, Mr Whitecross is correct. After we spent all that money on a strategic plan - which I had some responsibility for initiating - the Assembly said, "No, not good enough. Go and do it again". We did not say that it was wrong. We said, "It is not good enough for what we want. Go and do it again". It led to the National Capital Futures Conference, and there is some work still to be done. The part of the National Capital Futures Conference that was most frustrating was that, after he had not attended any of the sessions - Ms Tucker and I were there for almost all of the sessions, if not all of them - we then had Wayne Berry walking in at the end of the thing and saying, "This is all hopeless. It is all wrong". He had no idea what had gone on throughout the conference.

Ms McRae: He did, actually.

MR MOORE: He did not. You can say that he knew what went on. He certainly did not. You could tell from his speech. He said that all these things ought to have been done, and many of them were discussed and done and were issues raised by the conference. He had a couple of quite valid points to make about who was there and how they were represented. Of course, they were valid points to make at any time. But marching in afterwards and slamming it around without any attempt to work together was how he made his mark.

Mr Speaker, when we look at mistaken priorities or jaded priorities, as far as I am concerned and, I think, as far as a wide and growing number of members of the community are concerned, it seems that the Labor and Liberal parties have got their priorities wrong. Their priorities are more and more like each other's. That has occurred over the last 10 years. What we see from the Carnell Government is an attempt to get out

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