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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3448 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

The government talked about being a low-tax government. How can it reconcile being a low-tax government with increasing taxes, in the first ACT budget delivered in eight years by a Labor Treasurer, by $17 million? It just does not work.

You said that Gungahlin Drive will be built on time. Gungahlin Drive will not be built on time-that is now perfectly clear. The planning minister had to retract a statement to that effect, when it became clear that it was simply not true. The planning minister said he would conduct an environmental impact study into the need for a Gungahlin Drive extension. You know it is not going to happen. You know there will not be any environmental impact statement. Are you going to collect it after you start to build the road? When is it going to come? It is obviously not going to come. There is nothing nonsensical about that, Chief Minister-it is perfectly true.

You were going to allow pensioners to use concessional fares on ACTION during peak periods. You might be going to do that in 2003-04 or 2004-05-perhaps just after the next ACT election-but you said you would do it in 2002-03, your first budget year. You have not done that, have you? The money is not there.

You said you will reduce the use of external consultancies. I cannot prove that that is untrue-that you have broken that promise-but, as sure as hell, it looks as if you have, from where I am sitting. The amount of paper flying around this territory at the moment is simply unbelievable. The number of reviews, consultancies, inquiries and commissions you have under way-many of which are reliant upon external consultancies-must have a significant, positive effect on the consultancy industry in this town!

You said you were going to inject $6 million into the Canberra Hospital. Did you not say that? You did say you would do that. What would it achieve? You would admit another 1,300 patients and handle over 2,500 patients in the emergency department. That is 1,300 in-patients and 2,500 in emergency. Well, Mr Speaker, we have established already, as a result of the Estimates Committee, that the $6 million extra in Health is going to buy precisely 300 extra cost-weighted separations, not the 3,800 promised during the campaign.

You said you would not want a new Supreme Court building. You are now saying that you will have to think about a new Supreme Court building. You condemned fencing around Floriade, yet you built a fence around Floriade. You have attacked the entry fees for Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve-and the minister for environment indicated there was no plan to introduce fees for Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve.

You said that the levying of stamp duty on GST-inclusive prices was-and I quote the Chief Minister-iniquitous, regressive and unfair. Are you going to get rid of them? No. We can take that silence to mean no, we are not.

When you rise in this place, you can point to all the promises you have kept-all the good things you have done, how many wonderful, feel-good decisions you have made. That is great. I am sure you are very pleased about that. I repeat that for some of them you deserve credit-some are worth while. However, the fact is that you are expected to

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