Page 2080 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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Mr Berry: Mr Deputy Speaker, during the course of Mrs Carnell's speech she referred to the alternative budget. I wonder whether she would table it for us. I would like to have a look at it.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: She is not on the floor at the moment, Mr Berry. I can raise the matter when she returns.
Mrs Grassby: Yes, she is. She is sitting in the gallery.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: She is not on the floor of the Assembly at the moment, Mrs Grassby.
MR KAINE (3.47): Members, I have stood here year after year now listening to - - -
Mr Lamont: Too long.
MR KAINE: Not too long. I have a long time to go yet, my friend. In fact, I will probably outlast you.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the interjections keep coming, somebody will not be here for very long at all.
MR KAINE: I have outlasted a lot of other people, and I think I may outlast you, Mr Lamont. I have listened to the Chief Minister present a number of budgets, and those budgets have all had something in common. They all focus on the little things and they refuse to address the big things that need to be addressed in this Territory. We have heard the Chief Minister justifying a little bit of expenditure here. In fact, when I asked her a question about the ageing earlier at question time, she spent nearly 10 minutes talking about small sums of money that were being scattered around the place like pepper and salt. That is true of the whole budget. No matter where you look, there are little sums of money scattered around the place like pepper and salt, obviously aimed at pleasing certain small constituencies that may see some merit in what the Government is doing; but it fails to address the big issues, such as the restructuring that this Territory has to confront.
Year after year the Government fails to address the restructuring problem. Until it does address the restructuring problem we are going to continue to have budget deficits, we are going to continue to have budget overruns, we are going to continue to have major overexpenditures in health and education, and we are going to have, according to the Chief Minister and Treasurer's own forward projections, increasing public debt - things that we have been warned about since day one of self-government. These are things that we should not allow ourselves to get into. They happen because the Government will not confront the big issues.
The budget reply by the Leader of the Opposition today was, to me, somewhat reminiscent of a budget reply that was made in the first year of self-government in 1989 when the Chief Minister and Treasurer brought down her first budget. I made the same criticisms of that then as I have made in every year since, and I make them again.
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