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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2202 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
We should never have arrived at this position. If those who in the past might have criticised the Labor Government over education had any spine, they would have threatened the Government. That is what it is about. If you do not like what is delivered up in the budget, you take your chances at changing government.
That is not voting against the government of the day, not voting against the budget line, but changing the government. You went on to say, Mr Berry:
It comes down to this: It is a most inappropriate course to try to develop these sorts of amendments to a government's budget when you give them your vote of support on day one when you elect the Chief Minister. You say, "Chief Minister, you have your hands on the levers. We understand your philosophy, and away you go."
The opposition was saying very consistently and persistently throughout that debate that amendment of the government's budget by anybody, not just by crossbenchers but by anybody, was inappropriate. Mr Deputy Speaker, you spoke in that debate as well in similar terms.
The Labor Party argued hard at that time that they believed it was inappropriate to put governments at risk of having their budgets changed. They said, "The government's budget as a whole stands or falls. If you do not like the budget, vote against the government and bring the government down."
Ms Follett in particular drew attention to the precedent of what happened in 1941, when the first Menzies government was brought down by an amendment to its budget which reduced the budget by one pound. An amendment was moved to reduce the budget by one pound, and the government fell. It was a device that was seen as a way of bringing the government down. That is the precedent for amending budgets. It is a symbolic trigger for bringing a government to its knees, for removing a government from office. That has always been the accepted understanding of that matter outside this place.
Mr Deputy Speaker, obviously this place has the capacity to develop its own precedents in this respect, and perhaps to some degree we have, but until this year the Australian Labor Party has been consistent, more consistent than my party has. In 1993 we succumbed to temptation, at a time of very considerable public angst about the Labor government's cut to the education budget, and we said that we would protect the budget by removing the capacity of the government of day to use its appropriated money to remove teacher jobs, to sack teachers. At that time 80 or 90 teachers were being sacked by the then government.
Last year Labor was consistent with this approach, this view that oppositions do not amend budgets. If I may for a moment defend Mr Rugendyke, who perhaps also has been consistent-I do not venture an opinion about Mr Rugendyke-Mr Rugendyke last year said that he was opposed to what the budget contained and he therefore voted against the budget. He did not vote to amend the budget; he voted against the budget as a whole, as of course did the Labor Party. The Labor Party was very annoyed that the crossbenchers had done what it had done for a number of years, which was to vote against the budget of the government of the day. I am still mystified as to why it was all right for the Labor Party to oppose the budget but not for the crossbenchers to do so. But that is another debate.
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