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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 3 Hansard (7 March) . . Page.. 719 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
However, having put this figure on the table, you then decided to scramble for other things to pile on top of it to make sure it got below zero-a break-even point-down to $5 million. I have looked at some of these things, Mr Speaker, and I have to say to you that of course there will be agencies that will come forward and tell the ACT Treasury from time to time, "We're under pressure in particular areas and we need more money." Mr Quinlan will learn after a period in government that he cannot afford to accede to each of these claims, requests or pleas from an agency if he wishes to retain control of his budget. To be perfectly blunt, some of those claims, suggestions or pleas are try-ons; they are bids by agencies which do not, at the end of the day, appear to have a basis which would warrant Treasury dipping into its pocket and delivering more money to them. It simply does not. Mr Speaker, I have no doubt that if I were sitting in a cabinet which received some of those claims, I would look those claims extremely carefully in the mouth, and I have no doubt I would reject some of them.
Other suppositions have been made in this document which I think cannot be justified. One that caught my eye was an adjustment downwards of $676,000 in the first year, rising to nearly $6 million in out years, for the nurses pay rise. We put a pay offer to the nurses; an offer which was rejected. Surprisingly, a very similar offer shortly after the election was accepted by the nurses union-what a surprise! There was really very little difference between the offer made by the former government and that made by the present government. Nonetheless, somehow the nurses felt the offer by the present government was worth accepting but it would not accept the offer in the hands of the former government.
I note that the Commission of Audit describes on page 36 of its report how the treatment of this $676,000 in this financial year has affected the bottom line in this supposed deterioration of budget. I quote from page 36:
The Commission also noted that, as at 31 October 2001, the Minister had withdrawn the offer to TCH nurses.
That is an offer of a pay rise. Why did we do this? Because they rejected it-a perfectly good reason to withdraw the offer. It goes on to say:
However, it was not the Government's policy at the time not to make a subsequent offer.
Let us take out the double negatives in that sentence. What it is saying is that it was the government's policy at the time to make another offer to the nurses. Mr Speaker, I was the leader of that government and I can tell you that is not the case. My government's policy was: if the nurses were not prepared to accept that pay rise, we should go back to the drawing board and consider other ways of dealing with that problem. So this claim-
Mr Quinlan: Rubbish.
MR HUMPHRIES
: Well, you prove otherwise, Mr Quinlan. I am telling you that I was the leader of that government. You show me where we had the intention of making a fresh offer to the nurses, or an offer in particular that would deteriorate the territory's bottom line by $6 million by 2004-2005. That is supposition. You have thrown that figure in in order to get your magic figure of $5 million. It is a pretty dodgy supposition
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