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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1559 ..

MR BERRY: You would just love to get as many as I did, Michael.

Mr Moore: Not many of them were personal votes, Wayne. Watch it when you are not leader and see how many you get then.

MR BERRY: I was not a leader once before, Michael, and I got more.

Mr Moore: I got more personal votes than any Labor member of the electorate I was in.

MR BERRY: Okay, yours is bigger than mine; I give up.

MR SPEAKER: Order, please! You were going to conclude your contribution.

MR BERRY: The next thing I want to deal with is the encouragement of teachers over 45 years of age to take early retirement. Mr Speaker, if the Government is saying that that is not against the Discrimination Act, that it is not discriminatory, they should drop the 45 years of age requirement because that is the only way that you can make it non-discriminatory. Stop kidding us. It is discriminatory and the Government will be forced to drop it in the end, mark my words. You cannot discriminate against people on that basis. The best the Minister could come up with today was to say that it is to be voluntary. Mr Speaker, it is not available to people under 45 years of age, so it is discriminatory. Mr Speaker, the Government will have to ditch it if their credibility is to be preserved.

I heard Mr Rugendyke waxing lyrical about the Belconnen pool project. I thought for a moment that he may have had a lapse of memory because I do recall an Estimates Committee report on the last budget which recommended that the pool be built. The Government ignored it and Mr Rugendyke still voted for the budget. I do not want to aggravate him too much about that issue, but I just thought for a moment that there was a slight memory lapse. Of course, we will be ending up with half a pool now.

Mr Osborne: What was the choice? Vote against the budget.

MR BERRY: Mr Osborne says, "What is the choice? Vote against the budget". The choice is to say to the Government, "I am not voting for that particular one. Go away and fix it up". These budgets, in effect, are draft budgets. That is the practical effect of these budgets; they are draft budgets. That has been proven before. Labor has suffered amendments to its budget and Mr Moore will attest to that. Mr Kaine will recall that as well. So too will you, Mr Speaker, because I think you had a hand in it as well. These are draft budgets, Mr Osborne, and you cannot pretend anything else, otherwise we would not be dealing with a motion in principle now and having a detail stage later where people can do certain things with the legislation, including amend it. So, they are draft budgets, in effect. You can treat them in that way if you are hairy chested enough to look after the community; in particular, look after the promises that you made to the electorate. Mr Osborne, I know that when the crunch comes you will treat this budget as a draft budget, because that is what it is.

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