Page 901 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 24 February 2009
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applied that to the prison system: build a prison; make it state of the art, make it spicky; have the grand opening—but don’t have any prisoners, because it works better that way. There will be no break-outs from this prison, I can assure you, because there are no prisoners. That is the problem.
Now we go to the stimulus package. It is amazing. In this place in December we had both the Chief Minister and the Treasurer saying, “We have got a stimulus package coming. We are going to stimulate the economy.” Boy, did that change. Very quickly that changed. Reports in the Canberra Times on 18 December 2008 said:
The ACT government would introduce a second “mini-budget”—
a mini-budget—
in the new year that would bring forward capital works in a bid to stimulate the local economy, Treasurer Katy Gallagher said yesterday.
Let us stimulate that economy! We are going to use the age-old trick of the Labor Party to deliver capital works. We have got another damning report from the Auditor-General that says that they cannot deliver them on time or on budget. But we are going to go ahead. A second mini-budget. Sounds important. Sounds big.
Then we get to the reality of February. There it is tucked away in the Canberra Times. The Treasurer is now saying:
We’re not calling it a stimulus package, we’re too small to stimulate.
If it is not a stimulus package and it is not going to stimulate, what is it and what are we doing? And it goes on. She goes, “No, you have got to listen to me.” I do listen to what you say. I am reading what you said. I have listened. I am reporting it back to you—this constant backtracking from the government. What we have got in today’s admission from the Treasurer is that you have to cross your fingers because it will not have any effect at all. Here is the Treasurer today. Ms Gallagher said yesterday, as reported in today’s Canberra Times:
… it’s a very modest package—don’t get your hopes up …
That is the problem: people do pin their hopes on their government in the bad times. In poor economic times, they look to government for leadership.
What we have got is a running up of the white flag—the surrender by the Stanhope-Gallagher government, in particular by the Treasurer, who is not across her portfolio: “Don’t get your hopes up; I’ve got no ideas.” The problem is that you are taking the money for the job; you have got the word “Treasurer” on your business card. And you are hiding behind the global financial crisis to say “not, not, not responsible”. I will again read the quote from the Canberra Times editorial this morning:
The global economic plunge will force governments to curtail many programs as their budgets go into debt.
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