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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1477 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

threshold is a big, big, mistake. I would urge members not to succumb to that silly temptation.

I will say two things about Ms Tucker's contribution. I timed it. We had one minute of praise for the government and 36 minutes of criticism, which I think is a record.

Mr Moore: We have never had that much praise before.

MR HUMPHRIES: We have never had that much praise before from Ms Tucker, and I thank her for giving us so much credit in this budget. I am very impressed that she gave us a minute's worth of praise.

She also made one other comment. She said that reducing the CPI from 2.5 per cent in the draft budget to 2.25 per cent amounted to a cut in education. I think it was education she was talking about, but it might have been something else. Whatever area it was, she said we were cutting it by virtue of reducing the CPI rate.

Mr Speaker, a real increase or decrease is measured by the rate of CPI. So if the rate is actually 2.25 per cent, which is what we are told it will be by our economists-I think that is confirmed by the Commonwealth's economists, by the way-then pitching increases in outlays at that level can be neither an increase nor a decrease. It must be exactly matching and retaining the value of those existing outlays. It cannot be anything else.

Mr Berry listed a litany of what he called failures of the government. We have heard those many times before, and I am sure we will hear them many times again between now and October. He repeated again and again that the government is on the nose; the public have seen through this government; the government is going to fall when people next get the next chance to vote. I note that warning and I take that very seriously indeed. But I also note that Mr Berry said almost identical things before the 1998 election. (Extension of time granted.) I thank members. The vision people had of this government somehow did not stop them, for some mysterious reason, from voting us back into office in 1998.

He also poured cold water on the free school buses concept, as did Mr Stanhope. Mr Speaker, I read into those comments nothing but a clear indication that Labor sees this as its way of finding some spare money when it gets into government, as it says it will in October.

Mr Wood: No, you don't read it that way at all.

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, let's have an unequivocal statement in that case, from one of you-anybody, I don't care-saying that Labor will protect and respect the free school buses provided by the Liberal government. When I hear that, Mr Speaker, I will withdraw my comments and apologise.

Mr Hargreaves: You should listen to the speeches.

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