Page 1648 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 May 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
the community and say: "I am going to raise $4m from the education budget come hell or high water. I do not care what you say about the criteria. How I do it is irrelevant to me. I do not care how much damage I do in that process". I would be justly chastised by the population of the ACT and I would not expect to hold my position in those circumstances.
Mr Wood wants to be told what the Government is going to do in the way of a budget decision. That is a decision you will have to wait for, Mr Wood. That is a decision that no opposition can reasonably ask a government for ahead of time. I would have thought that you would realise that, having been in government for seven months last year.
Priorities Review Board
MR JENSEN: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. Why did the Government find it necessary to commission an external report such as that for the Priorities Review Board? Why was sufficient information on existing services not available within government agencies?
MR KAINE: I have spoken earlier today about the unfair and discriminatory way in which the Commonwealth has treated the Territory in its transition from Commonwealth Government funding to local government funding. I have said that the figure of $100m a year has been put as the shortfall by the former Minister for Finance. I have also indicated that I do not know whether that is a good figure and I do not think anybody knows what that figure is at the moment.
Mr Moore: So why do you use it so much?
MR KAINE: I use it because the figure was put forward by the man who should know - the Commonwealth Minister for Finance. I only know what the Commonwealth Grants Commission and other bodies have told me. There have been three inquiries by the Commonwealth Grants Commission already, and in its last report it put the figure at around $80m. That is as a result of a very comprehensive study, so I have to assume that three years ago that figure was accurate.
There has been no further study done in that detail since then and we do not have the resources to undertake it, but the Commonwealth Finance Minister, who presumably does know, put a figure of $100m on it. That is the source of the information, and I took the good senator at his word.
Ms Follett: No-one else did.
MR KAINE: It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition says that nobody else did. Here we have a Labor Commonwealth Minister for Finance who puts a figure on the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .