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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (10 May) . . Page.. 1401 ..

MR STEFANIAK: Mr Speaker, I will withdraw that. Thank you for your ruling. Members no doubt will note that. A lot of nonsense has been flying in this debate.

Mr Berry: All lies and propaganda.

MR STEFANIAK: I am glad Mr Berry interjects. As he is wont to do, he talked about some amazing things. Someone must have switched the speech No 1 when Mr Berry started talking, because we had all the hoary old favourites, including that old chestnut, the futsal slab, which he just cannot seem to keep away from. I think we should give him a miniature one for Christmas. He talked about this government's "appalling financial record". It was quite amazing. Is it an appalling financial record when the government can bring down-and you have it in the draft budget-a balanced budget for the first time ever, with a forecast in the draft budget, which everyone has, of a $2.194 million surplus after the $344 million deficit which we inherited from the Labor Party?

Honestly, if that is a government that has an appalling financial management record and a dreadful financial record and cannot be trusted with Bruce Stadium or futsal slabs, I will eat my hat. In any sensible person's language, this government has brought down a series of good budgets to get us from a horrible deficit of $344 million to a draft surplus, which we have put on the table. People will see our budget in a couple of weeks time. In any sensible person's book, that shows excellent financial management.

Mr Berry also made another amazing quip just before lunchtime in this debate, Someone from this side interjected that when we were in opposition we did not attempt to have all sorts of amazing information which we properly regarded as commercial-in-confidence dragged out and put before the Assembly when it was not in the public interest. When we did try to properly extract from the then Labor government information which was in the public interest but had some commercial tint to it, what did they do? They refused to put it on the table. They refused to supply it. I was appalled to hear Mr Berry say that we did not have the numbers, that it is a different Assembly and that if they have the numbers they can do anything. I would have thought normal standards of what is appropriate should be the test, regardless of whether people have the numbers of not. That is something people need to consider in this debate.

What is it right and proper for this government to put on the table that he has not already tabled? What is right and proper in the community interest and the public interest? That is the crucial question, in terms of what should be put on the table. It is not just a matter of what should be put on the table because they think it is a good idea and can make political mileage out of it and keep the saga of the inconsistencies and the nonsense they have been spouting about Bruce Stadium going for longer and longer and keep spinning this web, almost a web of deception, to influence the public about Bruce and things relating to it.

They have to get back to what is proper and what is in the public interest, and not do as Mr Berry did and say, "I can do anything because I have the numbers." My God! If parliaments or civilisations had adopted that attitude, we would never have got past the caveman era. We would not have been out of the days of Attila the Hun if governments in the past had said that if they had the numbers they could do anything. That does not justify any sort of behaviour. People should think very seriously about that.

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