Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .
Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2271 ..
MR HUMPHRIES: Let us call it that amount. The Auditor-General made no qualification to his findings in 1995-96. Let us split the difference and call it $175 million.
Mr Quinlan: Read the estimates Hansard. He did not audit those figures.
MR HUMPHRIES: Let us be reasonable. Come on, Ted, you can go that far. Meet me halfway. I will give you $175 million if you give me the other $175 million. How about that?
Mr Quinlan: Okay.
MR HUMPHRIES: Okay, we have got a loss of $175 million inherited when we came to government. Does anybody here imagine how difficult it would have been to pare expenditure of even $175 million in a town with a total budget outlay at that stage of only about $1.6 billion? Out of $1,600 million we had to make up a difference-
Mr Quinlan: Of $150 million.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Deputy Speaker, I have hardly been able to get a single sentence out without being interrupted and I seek some support from you.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: With respect, Mr Humphries, you have been engaging in a two-way conversation. If you want to direct your remarks to me and ignore interjections, go ahead.
MR HUMPHRIES: I shall try, Mr Deputy Speaker. So we have a figure of $175 million-or whatever figure you want to take; it is a big figure, whatever it is-and the government had to find money, savings, extra revenue, whatever, to bridge that gap, and we have done that.
Mr Quinlan: You got that much from the Commonwealth.
MR HUMPHRIES: We have not got that much from the Commonwealth.
Mr Quinlan: You got $150 million.
MR HUMPHRIES: We have not.
Mr Quinlan: That is how much it has increased since 1995.
MR HUMPHRIES
: Read all the accounts. Every independent observer, from Access Economics to all of the others before them, has conceded that the ACT government has achieved the result of this bottom line in large part through hard work and difficult decision making. The evidence of that, the proof of that, is the consistent attacks that have been made on us over the last five years for the decisions we have made to reduce expenditure and increase revenue. You cannot sit there and say, "You guys are bastards for knocking off expenditure. You guys are ratbags for increasing revenue, for putting on these new taxes. You guys are doing all these terrible things to the ACT community" and then turn around and say, "Oh, none of that made any difference to get to this $4 million
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .