Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2348 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The disguises Labor has given these tax increases are ludicrously unconvincing. We are told that motor vehicle registration and parking charges need to rise, to get people out of cars and into buses. Wouldn't you think, though, Mr Deputy Speaker, that a party with this opinion would protest if another party tried to reduce those same charges-in its budget, for example?

What did Labor do in just this circumstance last year? They said that the then government's rego cuts did not go far enough. When votes matter to Labor, it is a case of "Bugger the environment!" The litany of lies continues.

No 7-the government will save $7.3 million by taking the western route for the Gungahlin Drive extension, a promise in their financial statement of 15 October 2001. It has already been broken, because the road is going to cost more, not less, on your preferred route.

No 8-Gungahlin Drive will be built on time, within the Liberals' budget; so Mr Corbell solemnly intoned in the Assembly just three weeks ago, on 3 June 2002. That was a promise and now it has been broken. The latest we have from Mr Corbell is that the road will be finished at least a year later than scheduled, on a smaller scale than promised, and will cost some $27 million-and counting-more than planned. Mr Corbell justifies this by saying that the original Liberal cost estimate was only preliminary. If so, why did he adopt those costings and link his own promise to them, just three weeks ago, in this house?

On top of breaking that promise, there is broken promise No 9-to conduct an environmental impact statement into the need for the Gungahlin Drive extension. That is a promise which, incidentally, the planning minister cannot remember making but which 200 people present at the public meeting last August most certainly can.

Broken promise No 10-Labor also said it was opposed to higher tip fees; it opposed the increases made in 1996. Now it is time to break that promise by imposing an additional $1.56 million on people who dispose of their waste material. Perhaps they meant to say, Mr Deputy Speaker, that they are opposed to small increases in tip fees-whoppers are okay.

Still the broken promises keep coming. "Labor promises at the 2001 election will cost only $22.12 million in 2002-2003"-so proclaimed Labor's financial statement costed by Dr Gerritsen. However, on close examination, most of the Gerritsen-costed promises have either disappeared, been reduced in operation or, more typically, are far more expensive than promised. Examples include the transfer of remandees to Symonston, the Woden to Downer cycleway, respite care, the knowledge bank, and families facing domestic violence. Every one of those promises is much more expensive than promised by Dr Gerritsen.

Labor promised, in its health fact sheet No 3, to build at least two after-hours clinical GP centres at Canberra and Calvary Hospitals. There is no reference to these in the budget. In fact, Labor has been back-pedalling on these issues. That is another broken promise.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .