Page 1273 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 25 March 2009
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MR SMYTH: Guaranteed his surpluses. And it is just not true. That is the problem for the people of the ACT. It is the denial of this government. To give Peter Beattie his due, Peter Beattie said, “I have a problem but I’ve got a solution to the problem.” All Mr Stanhope does is to say, “It’s your fault because you’re talking it down.” Our job is to hold you accountable and our job is to ask you to tell us how you are going to deal with it. We offered a joint discussion. We said, “Let the three parties here sit down and have a chat.” It was dismissed by the Chief Minister: “Don’t want to do that. Don’t want to talk to you. Don’t want to know.”
You have to look at it and compare. You have to contrast and compare what the Rudd government has done, whether you think it is going to be effective or not. Rudd was saying, “Do it now; be decisive.” As Mr Coe just pointed out, the Governor of the Reserve Bank said, “Don’t talk yourself out of stuff.” That is what this government is doing. Mr Rudd said, “Let’s throw the kitchen sink at it.” I think he threw it in the wrong direction; there is no need to get rid of the kitchen sink.
The point here is that we have to wait for almost six months of this government since they were re-elected to find out what they might do. The Stevens quote is very important: “about the biggest mistake we could make would be to talk ourselves into unnecessary economic weakness”. What has the Treasurer said? “Don’t get your hopes up; we’re too small to stimulate.” She has already done it. She has talked this government into that position of weakness from which they need to recover.
Yesterday we had what can only be the most appalling statements from the Treasurer and the most hurtful comments from the Treasurer to people who are already suffering. In the answer to a question from me about what is a recession, she said:
At the moment I would be surprised if anyone, in a technical recession sense, is feeling the impact of the technical recession.
Well, technically does not count when you are stressed at home because of the economic circumstances you find yourself in.
It is beyond comprehension that a Treasurer who, according to the Chief Minister, is meant to be building confidence—“Let’s put confidence into this”—does this. Take her aside, Jon, and tell her, “Don’t make these statements.” She went on to say:
With respect to the impact on the community—that is, householders—
householders, families, probably working families—
and even businesses to this point—I would say that there has not been a noticeable impact of a technical recession.
Let us forget about the technical sense of it; let us find out what is really going on there in the ACT community. In its submission to the public accounts inquiry into the third appropriation bill, ACTCOSS says this:
The financial crisis has and will continue to have disproportionate impacts on people in the ACT experiencing disadvantage.
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