Page 1156 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 22 August 1989
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We saw in recent days the Deputy Chief Minister give a grant-in-aid to a clay pigeon shooting club before the planning committee of this Assembly, in its examination of the capital works, had concluded on the propriety and appropriateness of a $700,000 grant to put a road into Kowen Forest simply to get up to the clay target club. We need to know whether we have a credible and a competent financial manager in the ACT for our fortunes. The signs are, in the Chief Minister's response to the Federal budget, that we are simple cousins at the end of a string; puppets to be served up, as the Chief Minister has indicated in her sycophantic response, the conclusions that the Federal Treasurer reaches for society.
The Chief Minister could make signal measures and, because of the proximity to the Federal Government, could have taken strong steps to see that there were other initiatives in the Federal budget. We have heard nothing from her as to the effect of the proposed sale of the Moomba to Sydney gas line with its spur lines. That sale is of considerable significance to people living in the suburbs because it presents an opportunity for the main supplier here, if it wished, to acquire that pipeline, with or without funding assistance from the ACT Government. It is certainly a community based issue. It should have been mentioned by the Chief Minister in her response because it has local effect.
Similarly, there are a number of other issues in the Federal budget, one of which is the proposed asset sale of Gowrie Hostel. We have commented on that already, to indicate that the timing of it suggests a great deal of opportunism on the part of the Federal Government. But, more importantly, Mr Deputy Speaker, in budget paper No. 2 at page 23 it is revealed that the Department of Finance estimates that it will receive a total of $70.4m interest from the ACT Treasury on matters which are yet to be fully detailed. That is a heavy interest payment already to the Federal Government, and this Government proposes to take on other loans. We will comment about that in due course.
Mr Speaker, we do not know yet what the basis was for the agreement between officers for the proposed payment of $67.7m dollars to the Commonwealth for land development costs incurred by the Commonwealth, allegedly, prior to self-government day. That is such a large item in the future of the Territory, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the Rally believes there should be a separate and full accounting examination by the Public Works Committee of this Assembly of that issue. We call for the negotiating documents and the papers relating to the agreement reached before this Assembly was sworn in relating to those sums.
It is right and proper that that proposed payment be examined. Also, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Federal Government was prepared, when Mr Field came into government in Tasmania, to waive a $48m debt that that State was alleged to have owed the Commonwealth. We received no such dowry as
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