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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2760 ..

MR QUINLAN (3.45): Mr Speaker, I have not had time to read the government's response to the report of the Select Committee on Estimates. However, I would like to make a couple of comments.

I think I heard the Treasurer tell us that the penultimate Estimates Committee talked about social programs.

Mr Hargreaves: Social deficit.

MR QUINLAN: Yes, social deficit. The government denied that but has then taken some action with its building social capital program. This is a very Irish but typical explanation from Mr Humphries.

Mr Smyth: Excuse me, Mr Speaker. I take a point of order. My father is Irish and I resent the use of the word "Irish" in that context. The member should withdraw it.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR QUINLAN: You can cop it, sonny.

The only other comment I will make, Mr Speaker, is that the figures in the forward estimates that we got with the draft budget bear little relationship to the final outcome that has been heralded by the government. This would indicate that, despite the claims and posturing that we have just heard and seen, the Treasurer does not have a clue. If in fact the Assembly had been brought up to date and given effective information as to what was actually happening in the territory, I am sure that the members of this Assembly would have taken to the draft budget with far greater enthusiasm than they showed after receiving a document that had as a prelude a series of announcements that were designed to give the Treasurer media exposure right through the Christmas period and to create an illusion in the minds of some people that he actually knew what the portfolio was about.

I think it is a bit much to ask the members of the Assembly to take seriously a process which was quite obviously designed to allow a sequence of media opportunities for announcements to be made during an otherwise quiet time, and in particular the proscriptions that the government placed upon committees in relation to what they might or might not do within the confines of the budget.

I am very pleased that the government has at least responded to the Estimates Committee's report for the year 1999-2000. Maybe, if the government is around next year, it might start taking notice of the contents of this particular estimates report.

Debate (on motion by Mr Corbell ) adjourned.

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