Page 218 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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Mr Speaker, I commend the report to the house and note that a number of members of the house have already endorsed various recommendations in the report. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
Debate (on motion by Ms Follett) adjourned.
ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL POLICIES
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR SPEAKER: I have received a letter from Ms Follett proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The disastrous impact upon the people of Canberra of the economic and financial policies pursued and alluded to by the ACT Government.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (3.22): Mr Speaker, it has become quite clear since this shame of a Chief Minister took office - seized office, should I say - that he has no idea or concept of how the economy of the ACT functions nor, indeed, how Government finances operate. Every statement made by the Chief Minister on either the economy or ACT Government finances has been based either on his extremist ideological prejudices or on a failure to understand procedures. From the very beginnings of this Assembly, Mr Kaine has indicated his perception of the public sector. In this Assembly, on 28 September, he stated and I quote, "Bureaucrats in offices do not deliver the goods". His position is quite clear. Mr Kaine clearly believes that 50 per cent of the workers in Canberra do nothing - they do not deliver the goods.
It is from this misguided ideological premise that Mr Kaine begins his ideological analysis. It is the same philosophy that has been put forward by ideological dinosaurs like John Stone, Charles Copeman and Ian McLachlan. Mr Kaine has an ideological obsession against the public sector and against the people in Canberra who work in the public sector. This is why he has created his Priorities Review Board and it is the reason why he pushed so hard for a supposedly independent audit of ACT assets. The great catchcry of this new right agenda is that "by managing better" and more efficiently you will more efficiently put people's profits into their own pockets. It is a new right agenda.
No credit, of course, should go to Mr Kaine for these ideas. He is simply implementing Mr Greiner's agenda which you have already seen in operation in New South Wales for some time. Mr Kaine has set up an audit of assets as an independent cover for his program of selling off the assets which belong to the people of Canberra. He has set up an independent Priorities Review Board as a cover for the
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