Page 3677 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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Mr Mulcahy: Who?
MR STANHOPE: Gary Humphries. His nickname throughout the ACT public service in all his period as a minister was Gary Humphries, the great procrastinator.
Mr Hargreaves: Have you ever been Gary-ed?
MR STANHOPE: Yes. It is not just that; his in-tray of course was always full and his out-tray was always bare. I am not joking about this, but Gary Humphries’s nickname, throughout all of the portfolios for which he was a minister, was the great procrastinator because you simply could not get him to focus on an issue; you could not move files out of his office. You could get them in but you could never get them out; hence his nickname. As I say, it is not such a fond nickname. We saw that, of course, in all those areas of responsibility which he had and we saw the disastrous results of those through issues such as the level of support and funding for things like mental health under Gary Humphries.
When Gary Humphries left this place after his defeat in 2001, part of the legacy that Gary Humphries as Chief Minister left us—and people are reminded of this; they do not forget these things, and they will not forget on Saturday—was that Gary Humphries was the Chief Minister that invested less per capita on mental health within the ACT than in any other place in Australia. Part of the shameful legacy of Gary Humphries in 2001 was—and this in the most prosperous and wealthiest community in Australia—that the level of funding for mental health services under Gary Humphries as Chief Minister was the lowest on a per capita basis of any place in Australia. It is barely credible, is it not, in this place, in Canberra, with our capacity? The trouble was, of course, that, under Gary Humphries, there was no capacity, recovering, as he sought, from the $800 million accumulated deficit in the first four years of Liberal government. No wonder he had to reduce expenditure on mental health to the lowest of any place in Australia.
Gary Humphries’s other legacy, in conjunction with Michael Moore of course—
Mr Smyth: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: under standing order 58, a member is not to digress. The motion is about the contribution that the Australian government makes to the economy of the ACT, not Gary Humphries as Chief Minister. I ask you to call the Chief Minister to the motion.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Humphries is part of the Australian government.
MR STANHOPE: A consequence of the commonwealth government or a Howard Liberal government, of course, was a lack of support and a lack of budget capacity within the Liberal governments because they were not prepared to take some of the hard decisions. You cannot have it both ways. I have made the point. Mr Stefaniak went to this in detail—15 full minutes that the glowing rose-tinted view of the success of the ACT is all down to John Howard.
You cannot have it both ways. If all of these great achievements of the last five years of my government really are to be attributed to John Howard and Gary Humphries,
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