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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2090 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

between the draft budget and the final budget. It commented on the ad hoc decisions made in view of the coming elections. The government said that this paragraph ignores the fact that most of the additional initiatives of which the committee was critical were introduced as a direct result of consultation with and input from the community, and that this is exactly what the draft process is designed to do. Well, where is the evidence of this?

Where is the evidence that the government received any contribution from the community, and, if they did, why didn't they pass it on to the committees who were considering the draft budget? No, because there was no substantial contribution in relation to these matters. I was part of the draft budget process. I have been around here since 1989. Since 1995, when the government made its free school bus promise, not one person has said to me, "That was a good idea." Not one person has come to me at any of the committee hearings that I have been to and said, "Gee, that will make education better," or, "It will make the community a lot better off."

It makes a mockery of the government's position in relation to poverty and social capital. This government does not know what either of them mean. If they did, why would they pick school buses to spend $27 million on if they were really serious about building social capital or doing something about poverty? Well, the reason for that, of course, is that they are not interested in either of these things. They are interested in the forthcoming election and election sweeteners, and that is what this was designed and presented for.

Mr Speaker, 75 per cent of the students out there are going to miss out on anything from the school bus initiative. About 25 per cent will get something from it. Most of them already have been punished over the years by this government with the two-zone bus system that forced them to pay double fares to get to school. That is something that Labor will fix, Mr Speaker.

It is also interesting that the government says that this is the direct result of consultation with and input from the community. Well, you would have to say that if the ditching of the Floriade fee was about direct consultation with the community, the fee would have gone a long time ago. It would not have happened right now because there have been howls of protests for years about the Floriade fee. The fact is that it was a knee-jerk grabbing exercise. We all know that.

The proof of that lies in the tens of thousands of expensive glossy leaflets that were prepared by CTEC for circulation. I am trying my memory out now, but I understand that 20,000 of those were circulated with false information in them that there was a fee of $5, and 30,000 were in hand and needed to have a little insert put in them. I would hate to be the person putting the insert in because I would be there for a fair while. The little insert says, "No, the little story about the $5 fee is wrong. It's now nothing. We have been consulting with the community after these were printed and we have found that they want to get rid of the Floriade fee." The fact is that the Floriade fee has been a bone of contention for years.

What else happens as a result of the Floriade fee reduction? Well, the chairman of CTEC and the government say to us, "We are going to get rid of the fee but we are not going to get rid of that rotten fence. That fence is going to stay." All of a sudden it is necessary.

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