Page 2878 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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Of course, one of the reasons that the government is struggling to pay nurses and to pay public servants what those public servants and nurses deserve is because of some of the priorities of this government. We have litigated light rail pretty well, but I do not think we should all forget Skywhale. I think it is important that we remember Skywhale. It is difficult to forget Skywhale, isn’t it? I know that there are probably young children around the territory who still have nightmares about Skywhale.
There are some pretty serious issues that came out of the estimates hearings about Skywhale. I refer in particular to recommendation 10:
The Committee recommends that the ACT Government provide the Assembly with the full detail of the process that led to the gifting of the Skywhale hot air balloon to a Victorian hot air balloon operator.
Recommendation 11 was:
The Committee recommends that the Executive director, Culture and Communications either substantiate his allegations that there were safety concerns with Picture This Ballooning that led to their not being considered for the gifting of the Skywhale or apologise unreservedly
I do not think that the process around the acquisition of Skywhale was satisfactory. I think that the tendering process was questionable, and I think that the language used by the officials, who basically insinuated that there were safety risks that clearly have been shown not to be the case subsequently for a company involved in ballooning, were very serious allegations that were completely unsubstantiated.
That was a cost of $300,000, and we could probably point to a number of other people around the territory who thought that that was a bit of a misstep. I certainly recall the quotes from Mr Stanhope, who called it a political misstep, and who had some very critical things to say about Skywhale. I think that it is endemic of this government and the decisions that are being made.
Another point I would like to make about CMD and the Chief Minister is the negotiations around Gonski. It was very difficult—and you would remember this, Mr Assistant Speaker Doszpot—to get the detail about the negotiation process. It was very frustrating how evasive the minister and indeed officials were with regard to getting that information.
What became clear, what we finally got to the bottom of, is that the pre-Gonski plan compared to the post-Gonski plan saw the ACT government getting about $30 million less from the federal government. (Second speaking period taken.) So although what is now in the budget will see an increase in funding for education, the amount that we are getting from the feds is $30 million less than was otherwise on the table.
In the context of things like the deficit, in the context of wage negotiations where the government is saying, “We don’t have enough money to pay nurses properly, we don’t have enough money to pay public servants properly,” and public servants and their unions are saying, “We’ve been shafted, we’ve been insulted,” and nurses are
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