Page 1227 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007

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commonwealth. But they are not bedtime stories; they are reality. I do not mind if Mr Stanhope feels that he has to put out rather silly releases if he needs to get something off his chest but I have to tell you that these angry statements, which contain some measure of hilarity, do not have any impact on me at all.

As we heard in his dissertation earlier today, Mr Stanhope continues to hang on to the notion that the government has always been in surplus. He bounces between AAS when it suits and GFS when it does not. Of course, we all know that the ACT government leapt into embracing GFS—last year I think he called it the general finance sector but they were then working on the terms; and I think they also called it the audit accounting standard and were trying to work on that. Maybe Mr Barr can help illustrate what those acronyms stand for.

If you look at his budget papers, it is interesting to note that under the GFS system, the one that the government was driven into accepting because Standard and Poor’s said they just did not at all feel comfortable with the AAS presentation of accounts, you have a $80.3 million negative outcome for the 2006-07 budget, a $162.3 million negative outcome for 2005-06, and around a $270 million negative outcome for 2004-05. So if Mr Stanhope wants to know about deficits, he can look at page 339 of budget paper No 3 in 2005-06. These figures will confirm the comments I have made publicly that he has attempted to step around.

It is looking like we are getting back into a surplus, thanks to the massive raft of taxes imposed on the people of Canberra—taxes such as the utilities tax that no other state in Australia has. So whilst on the one hand I welcome the fact that we are probably going to revert to surplus—I imagine next week—I am concerned about how we have got there. We have not got there through the sort of restraint that Mr Barr would favour of a bit of economic rationalism. We have got there through saying, “Let us just punish the people of Canberra. Hit them with a raft of taxes, slide in the WPI instead of CPI, and we will get the money in one way or another.”

Question put:

That Mr Stanhope’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question now is that the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

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