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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4262 ..
MR BERRY: My question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, I refer to your comments at the Property Council conference last Friday where you described the recession, the hard times in Canberra, as "the transition we had to have". On Saturday, 29 November, it was reported that Canberra families were facing their toughest Christmas, with 30 per cent of families in the ACT now living on an annual income of $11,000 or less. It was also reported that requests to the Anglican Church welfare arm, Anglicare, were up by 50 per cent over the past 12 months. St Vincent de Paul expect to spend around $100,000 in getting families through the Christmas period - an increase of 5 per cent. The Salvation Army is also reporting an increase in requests for assistance from Canberra families to help them through the Christmas period. Chief Minister, is this the transition you said we had to have, and why?
MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much. You have to laugh, have you not?
Mr Berry: You would laugh.
MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I made the comment. I am laughing at - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! There is a lot of business to get through. I am not going to put up with constant interjections at question time or at any other time. I just remind all members of the Assembly of that.
MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry knows perfectly well that I was not talking about public service downsizing or the hard times Canberra was going through at that stage of my speech. I was speaking about the transition from the Federal Government as our major employer to an economy that was more private sector based and to a more diversified business base. Those who have been in this place for a while would remember Rosemary Follett, I think, making exactly the same comment - that the challenge for Canberra was to move to a situation where we were not as reliant on the Federal Government. These are the exact words that I used - we were not as reliant on the Federal Government. We never want to be in the situation that we were in in the late 1970s, and that we have been in before that when a Federal government decided to downsize. When it decides to have a bit of a financial hiccup, the ACT is the entity that suffers.
I believe that the transition to having a more balanced business base, a more balanced employment base, is absolutely essential for this city. Fascinatingly, Rosemary Follett thought exactly the same. I think Trevor Kaine before that felt exactly the same. It appears that the only person who does not understand that is Mr Berry. I think that is really tragic, Mr Speaker. If Mr Berry wants to be at the beck and call of various Federal governments, Federal governments that, I have to say, have not shown a whole heap of care about the ACT over all sorts of different permutations and combinations,
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