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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2237 ..
we have sat in this place, not once. If I am wrong, you can come back and show me where we did it.
Mr Wood: You amended the budget.
MR HUMPHRIES: We amended the budget one year-in 1993-in a decision which afterwards we indicated that we believed was a mistake. We agreed in 1995 in this place on a motion by, I think, by Mr Connolly of the opposition that the financial prerogatives of the crown dictated that governments not have their budgets amended, that they be accepted or rejected in total. We have agreed on that, Mr Speaker, but we have never opposed a budget.
I also heard Mr Stanhope say on the radio this morning:
I think there's a lot of us who do have a concern that members of the crossbench, the so-called Independents, do not toy with the parliamentary process and do not toy with the parliament to this extent.
That may be good advice, Mr Speaker, but there is a very important parliamentary process with which this opposition has interfered for the last five years.
Mr Stanhope: What's that?
MR HUMPHRIES: That is the proposition that you do not block supply. Back in 1975, a quarter of a century ago, this country was plunged into crisis because the Senate of the day chose to block supply.
Mr Stanhope: Because of ratbaggery by the Liberals.
MR HUMPHRIES: Absolutely. I agree with you on that. Since that time, to its credit, the federal coalition has not blocked any Labor government's budget in the federal parliament.
Mr Stanhope: In the Senate.
MR HUMPHRIES: In the Senate, that is right. It has never blocked a budget in the Senate or the House of Representatives for that matter. It has never blocked a budget, Mr Speaker. Yet every year since they have been in opposition, every single year since 1995, members of this opposition have blocked supply, the very thing that they condemned back in 1975. They have blocked supply, Mr Speaker, yet they have the nerve to accuse the crossbenchers in this place of flouting parliamentary tradition. Mr Speaker, the fact of the matter is that those opposite are the ones who are flouting tradition.
Mr Speaker, we also heard this morning the extraordinary claim that the government contributed nothing from the bottom line to superannuation. The fact of the matter is that that claim can only be made, very conveniently, by ignoring the fact that the government has put in $300 million-
Opposition members: Oh!
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