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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 12 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3927 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank members. I move:

I present a supplementary explanatory memorandum. The first amendment to schedule 4 is necessary because the Machinery Act 1949 in fact still has some continuing operation and, I am told, therefore needs to be retained. The other amendment seeks to omit the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance) (Amendment) Act of last year for the same reason.

Amendments agreed to.

Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

MS CARNELL (Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to make a statement.

Leave granted.

MS CARNELL: I thank members. Mr Speaker, it is I suppose with great pleasure and also a certain level of sadness that I make this statement tonight as this will be my last day in this Assembly. The last nine years - or nearly nine years - since I was elected in 1992 have been an incredibly important part of my life and the life of my family. I think everybody in this place would say the same thing. They have been a very eventful nine years and a very important part of the history of the ACT.

I would have to say, Mr Speaker, that when I was elected in 1992 I did not anticipate for one moment that I would be Chief Minister; I did not anticipate for one moment that I would be Leader of the Opposition; and I certainly did not anticipate for one moment that I would be Chief Minister for 51/2 years. It just sort of happened. It was great fun because we on this side of the house, and the whole Assembly, have had the honour of being able to represent the people of the ACT through some pretty difficult and important times.

When we were elected to government in 1995 the unemployment rate was 7.1 per cent and the economy was bubbling along reasonably well. But soon after being elected, the Howard government, in an attempt to address a very significant budget black hole, went down the path of very significant public service cuts. Some 7,000 jobs were lost in about 15 months. Of course, as we know, the ACT economy was plunged into what was very nearly a true recession. In fact, at one stage we had, at least on paper, three consecutive quarters of negative growth. The Australian Bureau of Statistics later revised those figures to make it two consecutive quarters, so I suppose we never actually reached the

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