Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1368 ..

Mr Quinlan (continuing):

Australian, which means that ACT residents on average are spending less-in fact, they are at the bottom of the table-in terms of the proportion of weekly income or monthly income being spent on mortgage repayments.

In respect of interest rates hikes for ACT citizens the impact-whereas it is never pleasant; one never likes to pay more in mortgage repayments when interest rates go up-is less on the ACT than on any other community in Australia. I think that that is good news, basically, and I invite the opposition to start to acknowledge at least a little bit of the reality. Whereas you can obsessively focus on where things go up, sometimes things go down as well and a whole picture demands a fairer assessment of the benefits of the federal budget than they have been prepared to offer so far.

MR QUINLAN: I have a supplementary question. Mr Treasurer, have your studies of the impact of the GST equipped you to inform us of the impact on a single-income family earning, say, $50,000 a year and servicing a mortgage of $140,000, given the consequential increases in interest as a function of this budget?

Ms Carnell: There is no consequential increase in interest.

MR QUINLAN: It is predicated immediately, is it not? Didn't you watch the tellie last night?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, there are so many hypotheticals. There was the hypothetical about interest rate increases and the hypothetical about a particular citizen. That is based on advice from my department about the benefit to the ACT community as a whole as a result of income tax cuts and the abolition of the Timor levy, Mr Speaker.

Mr Quinlan: Will you table the working papers?

MR HUMPHRIES: I have not got a working paper, Mr Speaker. That is the advice from my department. If Mr Quinlan does not like that advice, I suggest he get better advice.

MR KAINE: Yesterday I tried to get some information from the minister for health about the bizarre Oswaldian drug study, but I was unsuccessful. The minister, of course, is expert at saying a lot and saying nothing. I would like to try my luck today with the Attorney-General to see whether I can do better.

Minister, given that it has been confirmed that the participants in this bizarre study were using illegal drugs, were you, as chief law officer during the last five years, aware of this illegal activity; if not, why not? If you were, did you acquiesce in keeping the details of this illegal activity secret?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Kaine has made a number of assumptions in his question. I am not sure that a study of people using illicit drugs is itself illegal.

Mr Kaine: The use of illegal drugs is, is it not?

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .