Page 255 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
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They are not the Treasury officials who have briefed me in the past. I can tell you they are very expert and are very capable in doing their job.
What we have is a deficit looming, courtesy of the policies from this government. The former Treasurer and this Treasurer, the Stanhope-Gallagher government, were saying, even six or eight weeks ago, that we were in a sound financial position. What we have to have is a sound and appropriate policy response, a policy response that recognises the ACT is a very small fish in a very big pond and that the federal government has already taken action at the appropriate level, at the national level. We have to have a consistent policy from the government—something that we are not getting.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Services and Minister for Women) (5.34): As this is the new Seventh Assembly, I was rather hoping for a new approach from the opposition in the interests of collaborative and cooperative work. But this is probably the third time Mr Smyth has read the City News article in the last two days?
Mr Smyth: No, no. It is the only time I have read it out. That’s the only time I have read it out.
MS GALLAGHER: Well, the Liberal Party then. I am glad to see you read the City News and read articles about me. It is quite flattering, Mr Smyth. I predict that over the course of the next four years that City News article will be read upwards of 20, 30, 40, 50 times just to support the points that you are going to make. I only caught the last three or four minutes of Mr Smyth’s speech. But knowing the way that Mr Smyth organises his speeches, he says it all in the first four minutes and then repeats himself until his time goes down to zero. So I am sure I captured the general thrust and theme of the speech which was basically to have a go at me for my inexperience, to say that we should have seen these things coming, the fact that—
Mr Smyth: But you would be guessing, wouldn’t you?
Ms Gallagher: I do not know whether you went to the actual point that you saw this all coming?
Mr Smyth: Guess work?
MS GALLAGHER: That is right, you did. You said that you saw all this coming, which is why you were looking at delivering stronger services—bigger and stronger than the government’s. It gets into a very boy game there doesn’t it—mine’s bigger than yours, mine’s stronger than yours. But let us actually look at what you did in the election campaign, and this is the weak point for you. Was it $440 million worth of savings over the forward estimates period; $35 million worth of savings this financial year—slashing and burning government spending this financial year?
Mr Seselja: There is no slashing and burning. Not one job, Treasury said.
MS GALLAGHER: Not one job? Tell that to the nurse you were going to sack from the Alexander Maconochie Centre.
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