Page 3628 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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MR BERRY: You are to be congratulated for asking us to spend the money; but we have to get it from somewhere. Mrs Carnell is not here now; but, if you asked her, she might lend you some from the money tree. Otherwise, we will have to get it by the usual routine of taxes. This is one of those areas. It is a reasonable decision for the Government to have taken. For Mr Humphries, of all people, to jump to his feet and talk on these issues would take anybody's breath away. This means just a few cents per tank of petrol to the ordinary motorist, but a massive cut - - -
Mr De Domenico: You cost the ordinary punter $4m because of the VITAB deal, for heaven's sake.
MR BERRY: Just on rough figures, it means about $1.50 a tank saved by the action of the Government, and the community out there is congratulating the Government for it. As a result of CPI and so on, this will result in an increase of about 8c per tank. So, what are you whingeing about? The community out there are laughing. They have money in the bank and they are singing the praises of Terry Connolly.
MR HUMPHRIES (12.28), in reply: Madam Speaker, in closing this debate, let me make a few important points. First of all, it is quite true that the Alliance Government put up the price of petrol by 3c a litre. We have not denied that at any stage.
Mr Moore: And you were a Cabinet member then.
MR HUMPHRIES: I was a Cabinet member, and I supported the decision. I believe that there was, at the time, a very good reason to do so. We had a huge item of expenditure on our table. It was the hospital redevelopment program. We had a specific target for that. It was for two years. That is what we said and that is what we meant.
Mr Kaine: We could have done a Rosemary and borrowed it.
MR HUMPHRIES: We could have borrowed it, as Mr Kaine points out; but we said that we had a particular reason for it, and that was the reason we put forward. Madam Speaker, the point that Mr Moore seems to have lost sight of is that we had not said before that we were not going to introduce such a tax. We said that we were going to take the tax off after two years. We promised that again at the 1992 election, and we have promised it again now, and we mean it. With respect, the Government has attacked a government when it has put such a tax on; but, inconsistently with its promises, it has maintained that tax when that tax has been in its hands as a result of its coming into government. That is real hypocrisy, with great respect.
There is an important argument here - or, rather, a lack of an important argument - about linking our increase in ACT government tax to the CPI in New South Wales. Ms Szuty said that she heard and was impressed by the Chief Minister's argument on this question. I have to ask, "Why should the ACT's tax regime be linked to the price of any product in New South Wales or, for that matter, particularly of petrol in New South Wales, when we have taken the very specific decision to try to bring our price of petrol closer to that of New South Wales?".
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