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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2372 ..

MRS DUNNE (continuing):

wants to be open, honest, measured-what a nasty little, narrow, accountant-like term that is-and responsible.

You do not have to peer too closely to see all the deficiencies of this budget. Today, the leader of the opposition spoke of a ream of broken promises. Let us look at the portfolio of police. This is a government which variously promised 20 or 30 new police officers over three years-a government that promised that those police officers would go where the crime statistics indicated they were needed most.

What do we see today? Four of the seven police that they promise to give us next year will go into a DNA unit. They will take police off the beat and put them into a unit which could be run by non-sworn officers. This is an abrogation of Labor's commitment to policing in the ACT.

At the same time, it is ironic to see that the ALP suddenly has a new-found interest in DNA. They are all standing there to say, "Mrs Dunne, this is about catching criminals!" For two years, the same Attorney-General did everything he could to stymie the introduction of DNA legislation. Every time we turned around, you were finding ways of stopping the introduction of DNA legislation. If you search the Labor Party's website, what do they say about the DNA unit? Nothing! All they do is bag out the previous government for its draconian attempts to introduce something to which they have suddenly become converts.

Then we look at the environment, where again, there are opportunities missed and visions passed over. There is great fanfare by the Labor Party about its environmental credentials, but what do we see? In the words of Robert Macklin in the paper on Wednesday morning, there was use of weasel words, not the least of which was "sustainability". The Chief Minister sprinkled that word like confetti throughout the document. Everywhere you find it. When you go to find out what this government means by it, it is a meaningless, content-free definition.

Today, there is the release of a paper. What is it? Towards a Sustainable ACT: a Discussion Paper. This is a government which promised the introduction of an office of sustainability. Seven months later, they are putting out a competition to come up with a definition of sustainability. Seven months in the offing, and nothing. These are four ministers in search of a definition.

There is all this fanfare, Mr Speaker! The other day, Mr Wood announced $1.5 million, which promised many things, including new rangers. However, when we went through the staffing profiles in the Department of Urban Services, we saw not one new ranger next year. The ACT has been duped again by these people.

Then there are other things. In the past, we have talked about the hot water system scheme. This is another example of regressive measures by a regressive government-again a government with no vision and no future.

When you look at them, what do you see? We have the prospect of a return to the 1950s. It is grey and uniform-stolid, like boiled meat and cabbage. This is a grey government, and, like boiled meat and cabbage, it is unimaginative in the extreme. We ask for vision and we get a rear-view mirror.

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