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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (21 May) . . Page.. 1494 ..
Suspension of Standing Orders
Motion (by Mr Humphries) agreed to, with the concurrence of an absolute majority:
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent order of the day No. 1, Assembly business, relating to the Government's response to the Report of the Select Committee on Additional Estimates 1995-96, being called on forthwith.
Report on Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 1995-96 - Government Response
Debate resumed from 16 May 1996, on motion by Mrs Carnell:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (10.33): Mr Speaker, at this time last week this Assembly was treated to one of Mrs Carnell's increasingly familiar dummy spits about Assembly committee reports. This Government, which was elected on a platform of openness and accountability, does not much like it when other people suggest that it has not done its job properly. This Government, which pretended that this process of having a second Appropriation Bill was about openness and accountability, does not much like it when the parliament, to which it is meant to be accountable, says that it is getting it wrong. This is the record of this Government - a government which likes to talk about things but does not believe in the reality of them. What did Mrs Carnell expect the report to say?
Mr De Domenico: Will you ever stop whingeing and moaning? When are you going to get positive for once in your life?
MR WHITECROSS: When you do something positive I will say so.
Mr De Domenico: What a whinger!
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker.
Mr Wood: You have upset them.
MR WHITECROSS: They are easily hurt. This Government knew that they were not going to get a favourable reception from the Estimates Committee; they should not be surprised. They sat through the Estimates Committee hearings; they heard the questions that were being asked; they knew that the Estimates Committee was far from impressed by their approach. Yet we still had this most extraordinary dummy spit from the Chief Minister, suggesting as she did that somehow or other the Estimates Committee members were saying that they did not want to be there. What a nonsense!
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