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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (29 February) . . Page.. 380 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

colleague, Mr Carr, and the Treasurer in New South Wales have supported the proposition. In recent times we have seen the new Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand come over to give him a little bit of education about the GST.

So whom has Mr Beazley turned to? England. England will save you. Mother England. That is to whom he has turned. And because he opposes it, the ACT Labor Party - that is, the Berry-Stanhope Labor Party - also opposes it. They follow along like sheep. It does not matter to Mr Berry or Mr Stanhope that the tax reform package would make the people not only of Canberra and the south-east region of New South Wales but also the people of Australia much better off - even those people in Mr Beazley's own State, Western Australia. But no, we are still trying to find our way through this GST maze. It does not matter to these people opposite. The ideology - the quest - to bring down the Liberal incentives - - -

Mr Stanhope: Theology.

MR HIRD: I heard Mr Stanhope, part of the Berry Labor movement, interject. He would be interested to know that in the mid-1980s the world's greatest treasurer, Mr Keating, supported - he came up with the idea that we had to have a recession and he made the banana republic statement that everyone knows about - and applauded the introduction of a GST. Yes, I hear silence on the Opposition benches. That would be no surprise to me because they are stunned. It is more important to them to toe the Labor line - that is, the Berry-Stanhope line - than to look at what is best for the people of this great Territory and to create jobs.

I throw this challenge out to the Berry-Stanhope consortium - the Labor Party: Where is your loyalty? Do your loyalties lie with Labor or do they lie in creating opportunities for the people of this great Territory so that they prosper?. I wonder what their answer would be. Are the people of Canberra and the Territory or are Kim Beazley and your ranking in the Labor Party more important, gentlemen? Why do you choose to make the people of this great Territory do with fewer jobs and fewer opportunities?

What I am saying speaks for itself. There is not only deadly silence but also no-one on the Opposition benches. This proves my point. There is no-one there. The Leader of the Opposition has gone. Berry has gone. Everyone has gone. They do not give a damn. As Mr Humphries said earlier today, they do not give a toss about the wellbeing of their own constituency. Now that one member of the Berry-Stanhope consortium is back, I say: Why do you not do the right thing for the people of Canberra? Show a bit of leadership; do something useful for a change.

Let us look at why tax reform is so important not only to the ACT - that is the area that we are charged with; our jurisdiction; that is the area this side of the house is concerned about - but also to the south-east region of New South Wales. We are concerned for these people. Since it came to government in 1995 this Government has introduced programs to support the south-east region of New South Wales.

We will now have a little lesson. This is how we can be better off with a new package when it comes in. First, there will be $200m worth of income tax cuts. That means disposable income and jobs. It means that Mr and Mrs Average will have more money

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