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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2197 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The standard line is that it is piecemeal; that it is a scattergun approach to budgeting. This budget had three major themes: early intervention, innovation and addressing the needs of poverty. Those three themes extend across each of the portfolios and address needs for the long-term benefit of Canberrans. If this is a cheap political grab for votes, as they are so convinced that it is, why did we not this year spend all the money in the early intervention pool for simple political gain? The answer is that we have a long-term view. We have a plan. We have a vision to make Canberra an even better place to live than it already is. We will allocate funding as we see fit to achieve that aim. That will take time. Addressing poverty will take time. But we have made a start by addressing the poverty report as it was put to us, and we will address those needs as we can. It is a good line to say that the budget is piecemeal and scattergun. They are the only two adjectives they could come up with, because they know that, across portfolios in a coordinated way, we put together an excellent budget to meet the needs of the people of Canberra.

Mr Stanhope spoke about a total lack of understanding of the needs of education. If there is a total lack of understanding of the needs of education, Mr Stanhope can stand and tell us which of the $91 million worth of programs over four years and which of the $40 million of new initiatives over the next four years we should not go ahead with because we do not understand.

Mr Stanhope: The $27 million less than we are providing?

MR SMYTH: No, Mr Stanhope. You interject glibly. You have one line. You are like a scratched record, constantly interjecting across the chamber because you cannot come up with something original. Ask Mr Berry and he will give you a new line to interject with.

Given that we have this total lack of understanding of education-Mr Stanhope's words-Mr Stanhope can tell us which of the $40 million worth of new initiatives show that total lack of understanding? Which of those will they not go ahead with? If one of those is not knocked off by Labor, then we have at least a tiny understanding of education, which refutes his case.

Mr Stanhope: We will accept the tiny understanding.

MR SMYTH: When we point out the inadequacies of his case, we go from a total lack of understanding to a tiny understanding of education. The ground shifts. We get this movement from Mr Stanhope. I would not let him speak either. What we need from Mr Stanhope is an indication of whether or not they will consult, do an analysis of their impacts and give us a regulatory impact statement, a business impact statement and maybe a poverty impact statement as well before they make their election promises. He should tell the electorate which of those commitments they will honour in light of further information when they come to government. I bet you he will not.

Mr Stanhope has to stand and tell us which of the initiatives in the $91 million the Minister for Education has to spend on education over the next four years and the $40 million worth of new initiatives show our total lack of understanding-sorry, our tiny lack of understanding-of education so that we know exactly which of those initiatives will not go ahead. I bet we will not hear from Mr Stanhope on that either.

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