Page 1978 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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Perhaps the government might even think of what it can do to assist—now there is an idea—in the context of the opposition’s interest in communicating with the public. Maybe the government could assist in the distribution of the Leader of the Opposition’s speech to every household in Canberra. That is not a bad idea. I might just dwell on that. We might, in the interests of even-handedness, distribute the Leader of the Opposition’s speech to every household. We might even take full-page ads in the Canberra Times. This is the alternative. This is what you could have.
Mr Mulcahy: We will be happy to take up your offer.
MR STANHOPE: That may be. This is what the Liberal Party offers. This is the new leader, and he is better than the old one. Just imagine what the old one would have said to you.
This is a tough budget. This is a good budget. It is a budget that will stand the territory in very good stead over the next and coming decades. There is no doubt about that. It is a budget in which the government has grasped the nettle and dealt with the hard issues unflinchingly. We have shown a degree of dedication to structural and budgetary reform, the like of which no other government has ever had the fortitude or, it has to be said, the guts to attempt.
Other governments have never had the fortitude to believe that they can carry it through; never had the spine to acknowledge that it is going to be tough going and that there is going to be significant political response and reaction. We are nevertheless determined that it is the right approach, the proper and responsible thing to do, and face up to the challenges that we know are part and parcel of the inevitable community response to a budget of the sort we have bought down.
We have bought it down because of history, because of the way in which successive governments since 1989—and, it has to be said, prior to that with the legacy inherited from the commonwealth—have governed and the way we have faced and sought to deal with the issues which we, as a community, need to deal with, in the context of the expectations of this community around service delivery and what we have sought and been able to deliver. It has to be said—and it is probably a waste of time in this particular context at this stage of the debate—that these issues were not issues of this government’s making, at least not exclusively.
Mrs Dunne: I just frittered away $900 million. Somebody made me do it; it wasn’t my fault.
MR STANHOPE: I will just respond to that.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR STANHOPE: This government did not create a $1.2 billion unfunded superannuation liability. Who created the $1.2 billion unfunded superannuation liability? This government did not, but we have dealt with it.
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