Page 1578 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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previous government and we would certainly do again. We would encourage business. It is often a case of spending a few dollars to make a hell of a lot more. The minuscule savings you made from what you did last year and this year in business have effectively, I think, cost you 10 or 20 fold the returns you actually get in financial benefits to the territory.
If the Stanhope government is exposed like the emperor without his clothes, it has to thank the policies and focus of the Howard-Costello government. Mr Stanhope has spoken blithely of Liberal ACT governments having delivered four consecutive budgets in deficit. What he does not tell you is that this was the result of the recession we actually had to have caused by federal Labor ex-PM, Paul Keating, which we certainly got the benefits of, I do not think, in 1995.
In fact, after the Liberal government came to power federally in 1996, it took at least until last year to pay back the $96 billion black hole left by federal Labor, which entailed Australia paying $10 billion a year in interest payments. Yet the last ACT Liberal government was able to turn around a very poor economic situation that we inherited. We inherited a deficit of $344 million in 1995. We left an operating surplus of $89 million covering the four months to 31 October 2001.
A little history lesson is necessary, because it is not that long ago when times were difficult here. When 10,000 public servants were cut we created 9,990 jobs. It took some time, but we turned it around. The federal economy was turning around too around the turn of the century. The Stanhope government has actually been doubly blessed with a very sizable surplus left behind by the outgoing ACT Liberal government and with the upturn in the economy, brought about by the fiscal prudence, tax and industrial relations reforms of the Howard-Costello government.
It is interesting, though, Mr Speaker, that all the states and territories, including ours of course—governed by Labor—continue to take the credit. They all shout from the rooftops that it is their own economic management that has delivered this prosperity. It has been a convenient election platform to run on, too.
In another area, the Kennett government in Victoria and the last Liberal government here when Gary Humphries was the Chief Minister were taken to task by this Chief Minister when he was opposition leader for not being open to scrutiny. Mr Stanhope, opposition leader then in 2001, referred to the Humphries government’s record on matters of disclosure, transparency and accountability, which he opined fell well short of contemporary expectation and its own guidelines, so closely it follows the Jeff Kennett model.
In power the current government has put any perceived faults of these Liberal governments in the shade by its own lack of accountability and its refusal to accept the routine light of parliamentary and public scrutiny. Yesterday at the budget breakfast, the Treasurer stated in defence of his government’s abandonment of quarterly capital works statements that it was up to the opposition, or anyone else for that matter, to find out this information.
His government also has consistently refused to release the functional review, on the basis of which this government decided to slash and burn community services, close
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