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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2071 ..
MR QUINLAN (continuing):
Politically the government has missed an opportunity. It should be in a lot better state because of the opportunity it had in front of it, but it had to have too much self-praise and too much self-admiration and it had to try to oversell, to the point where everybody could see through it. The commentators could see through it. Much of the criticism about the scattergun approach and that sort of stuff was not due to political prejudice on the part of the chairman of the Estimates Committee. It was contained in submissions from ACTCOSS, ACROD, the North Canberra Community Council and others. It is patently obvious that there is universal acceptance that, being in a very good position politically, to a large extent you wasted it. You wasted it because you have this preoccupation with the sell and the overstatement which is typified by the dishonesty relating to the $344 million claim. I do not know where your self-respect is, but keep being human.
Mr Moore: We will.
MR QUINLAN: I know that you will. Michael, that was a good time for you to interject because, talking about hyperbole, you have to try to tell us that there has been a 10 per cent increase in hospital funding. That is not so.
Mr Moore: Budget to budget.
MR QUINLAN: You did not say that. You did not go out onto the footpath and say, "I want you to understand that it is budget to budget." I reckon by the time you take the expected expenditure for this year and the expenditure in this budget for next year and discount the difference for CPI, it will not be much more than one per cent. That, I think, is a truer indication of your budget. I think that, as the minister responsible for the hospital, you got done, mate, in the budget process. You got done by the government's former spokesman for health, who had to spend it all on this dizzy, scattergun approach, papering over every crack and pleasing every interest group possible. You got yourself done.
I think that the main features of this budget are the scattergun approach, the lost opportunities, and the fact that there is quite clearly, patently, a scorched-earth approach to finances, making sure that there is not a buck left in the territory for anybody to commit during an election campaign. Of course, along comes HIH, a bump in the road, and we are stretched. Look at the cash rundown. It has gone from $100 million to $9 million. You can look at investments, but if you look at your investments, you have also got to look at your growing liabilities. You are only keeping pace with your growing liabilities. You are only keeping pace with the growth in employee liabilities. We have not gained there. We have just spent $100 million on a scorched-earth policy for one election. You do not think ahead.
Just like Mr Lilley and Mrs Carnell did not think ahead in the spring of 1997 and built a black hole, not realising that two years out they just could not sustain it, you did not think far enough ahead. It is a shame that you have now created all the expectations that come out of those so-called initiatives which, I agree, will be difficult for any future government to undo. But, as far as future Canberrans go and as far as economic and financial management in the ACT goes, it was damned irresponsible to stretch the territory so thinly.
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