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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1459 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

what you did. The committee also asked that the government work with the Auditor-General to see how you could account for this particular financial or economic activity, how it could be accommodated in accounts so that the Assembly and the community can see what revenue we are forgoing in an attempt to support business. We need to know that. We need to be able to evaluate how successful it is. This is the thing about corporate welfare. There is very little accountability attached to it. We keep seeing money handed out.

Impulse Airlines is a classic example in the news this week. I remember asking to see the contract with Impulse. I wanted to know how tightly the contractual arrangements would guarantee that the handing over of millions of dollars was not going to be a problem. Now Mr Humphries is assuring us that we are going to get money back for the items that have not been provided, although I must say I found it absolutely fascinating that they will not have to pay back the component of the loan which refers to cheap flights, because the cheap flights were there for a while. I find that very interesting. I could get a huge grant from government to provide something for a while and then take off and sell. That does not sound like good business to me. It does not sound like accountability at all. It sounds like a waste of public money from people who are much too free with handing it out to the business community. It would be good to see the accountability that is now attached to the welfare of ordinary citizens in this country attached to the corporate welfare supported so enthusiastically by this government, the federal government and other governments around Australia.

In the budget the government claims that there is going to be no increase in taxes and no sale of assets, but we see quite a large increase in the sale of land, which some think is an asset even if this government does not. I was going through some clippings and I found that in the 1995 election campaign Michael Moore made pretty loud statements in the Canberra Times when I was running the first time, saying, "Do not ever vote Green, because they will support abolition or reduction of payroll tax." He said it was such an evil. It is interesting to see how things turn around. It did not work, but I think of it when I keep hearing this government now proclaiming, with Mr Moore on side, the benefits of reducing the threshold of payroll tax because it is a tax on labour, which is what we were saying in 1995.

A number of social issues deserve really detailed attention, but they will have to wait until after estimates. I want to make a comment about justice. We see, through legislation in this place as well as through budget initiatives, a strong law and order response, and we see this government appealing-Labor too, to a degree-to a fear in the community about crime, which I understand is quite reasonable in a lot of ways. What worries me a lot is that we do not see an equal focus on justice. We had that debate last week on the Bail Amendment Bill. I will not reflect on the vote, but I would like to have seen in this budget a much greater focus on access for people to legal support, legal aid, community legal services and so on, because I think it is getting quite dangerous when we get this overemphasis on the crime and punishment aspect of dealing with crime in our society but we do not have an equal focus on ensuring the rights of people who get caught up in the criminal justice system. The other side of that that always comes up-and I hear everyone bringing it up now-is prevention, which government claims it is addressing through prevention and early intervention initiatives. I have already commented on those aspects of the budget and applauded some of them.

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