Page 1976 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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that we will see a more efficient and more effective LDA in the future, free of conflict of interest, that will free up the development industry to get on with doing what it does best.
Prior to the 2001 election the Labor opposition said that, under a Labor government, the budget process would be rigorous, open and measured and include community debate. It said that it would not hide behind the cloak of confidentiality. How things have changed from those heady days of 2001. We have had from this government the most secretive budget process in the history of self-government. We have a secret functional review that no-one is allowed to see; not even most of the public service is allowed to see it.
This government has failed to live by the standards it set when it was in opposition and this budget is a clear example of how it has done that. The end result of this budget, the end result of this economic mismanagement, is that families will pay, students will pay, teachers will pay, first home buyers will pay, public servants will pay, industry will pay and Canberra as a whole, the Canberra community, will pay the price of this budget. We certainly hope and trust that in 2008 this government will pay for this budget.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister for the Arts, Acting Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services and Acting Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (5.40), in reply: I certainly thank members for their contributions to the debate. Of course, one needs to acknowledge, in the interests of openness and honesty, that it was an incredibly pathetic effort by the opposition, but one thanks them for their interest and for their contributions.
In thanking the opposition for their interest in the budget, one must pass some comment on the leading response, the leading reply, provided by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Stefaniak, the new leader of the Liberal Party. This is a brand new leader, flushed with success, who has been in the job for less than three minutes, presenting his first major speech as the head of the alternative government. It was a 40-minute effort—not bad.
What did Mr Stefaniak talk about in his statement of vision and position in his response to the issues faced in the territory in that 40-minute presentation by a brand new leader, full of energy and with a new vision and a new mandate from his party to take his party to government at the next election? What was the vision presented in the leading, the hallmark, the benchmark, speech by the Liberal Party in this place in response to the budget? It is a detailed budget. The budget papers have been out there for them, full of this government’s ideas and vision for the future and our commitment to Canberra.
What did Mr Stefaniak, the Leader of the Liberal Party, dwell on? He dwelt almost exclusively—but no surprise to anybody—on the impacts of the budget on business. If it was not about the impacts of the budget on business, it was about the impacts of the budget on tourism. It was about a rusted-on Liberal constituency. To the extent he talked about revenue and rates, he talked about the extent of revenue measures on business. This was the focus of the contribution by the leader of the Liberal Party. It was essentially an attempt at an analysis of initiatives within the budget focused almost exclusively around the impact of the budget on business and tourism, and the impact of revenue measures on business.
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