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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (14 October) . . Page.. 3145 ..

MR SPEAKER: Thank you. I uphold the point of order.

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker - - -

MR SPEAKER: Sit down.

Mr Quinlan: You have been a big help, Harold.

MR SPEAKER: No, not you, Mr Treasurer; Mr Berry. There is no point of order.

Mr Berry: You have got him frightened. I'm not.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down.

MR HUMPHRIES: There are always abnormal items every year, Mr Quinlan, as you well know, in any budget.

Ms Carnell: Both positive and negative.

MR HUMPHRIES: Positive and negative. As you well know, Mr Quinlan, the position was that the operating loss of the Territory, however you calculate it, was very severe at the time that the Government moved into accrual accounting. You know that. If you had the courage of your convictions you would be calling now for some back-casting to take place to find out what the actual size of the Labor operating loss was in 1994-95, but, of course, you will not do that.

Mr Speaker, there is one quite objective piece of information about how bad the economic position was when Labor left office and that is the amount of money available in the ACT's Consolidated Fund. I have here a graph which I am happy to table for the Assembly. It shows how much money was in the Consolidated Fund in the period from July 1990, when Mr Kaine was Treasurer, to June 1995. Members can see that over that period the Consolidated Fund dropped and dropped and dropped until, when Labor left office, it was effectively - - -

Mr Quinlan: We paid our bills on time, did we?

MR HUMPHRIES: In April 1995 the amount in the Consolidated Fund was zero, Mr Speaker. In other words, they ran down cash reserves and they raided - - -

Mr Quinlan: We did pay for super, you know.

Mr Stanhope: And we paid money into the superannuation fund. How much did you put in?

Mr Quinlan: How much did you put into the superannuation fund?

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