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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3446 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I recall reading about the first year of the Whitlam government, and hearing of the whirlwind of activity it undertook in its first year in office, after 23 years in opposition. You might say that Gough Whitlam, who was, of course, a Latinist, adhered to the Latin maxim carpe diem-seize the day.

The question for us today is whether this ACT Labor government, under Jon Stanhope, has seized the day-whether it is viewing the opportunity of government as a real one which it has grasped and with which it is making a great deal.

I would submit, Mr Speaker, that the answer is no, it has not. If we look at what the government is saying, we see that the past year has indeed been a year of lost opportunities. It has been a year when much could have been achieved, with the very significant mandate Labor obtained in the election last year, but in fact not much has been achieved.

A casual perusal of the media release put out today by the Chief Minister, I think, amply spells that out. I think it is worth reflecting on how little he says in this media release. He says that the government has made good progress in delivering on its commitments-and talks about fully costed commitments. I think he knows that the costings of his commitments have all fallen by the wayside-so that is a bit of sophistry.

He then talks about having set up a number of things. He talks about setting up an inquiry into disability services, restructuring the Health portfolio, holding a health summit, initiating the Reid review and appointing a panel of experts to start talking about the bill of rights.

Mr Speaker, there is a certain theme one can determine in those statements. That is the theme of review, examination and pondering what the future might hold. There is a sense that the government is determined to take this critical period, this first year or so of its tenure in office, and use it to think.

The question has to be: is this the time to be thinking, or is this the time to be acting? Was not the 61/2-nearly seven-years that Labor spent in the wilderness the time to be thinking about these issues? Was that not the time to be deciding what kind of split they wanted in education funding?

Was that not the time to be deciding exactly what the model for planning in this territory should be? Was that not the time to be deciding how a bill of rights might work in the ACT? Was that not the opportunity to do what they are doing today, and, in not acting at this point in time, are they not squandering the opportunity to put in place a thought-through, implemented program which reflects that careful thought over the past 61/2 to seven years?

Mr Speaker, I would submit that people will judge a government on how it acts, not on how it thinks about acting. The most extraordinary thing about this situation is that the Chief Minister repeats again and again how he sees it having been a massive achievement for the Labor Party to have won so handsomely in 2001-and he is right, up to a point. The government did win a handsome victory in 2001. It did win a large number of seats, although not a record number. It was not the largest government that has ever been formed, but certainly, with eight seats in a single party, he has set a record.

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