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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 1993 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Berry made some comments about how Newcastle is being treated significantly better than Canberra. I totally agree. I think that the Federal Government seems to believe that 3,000 or 2,000 jobs in Newcastle are significantly more important than the sorts of redundancies that they have put in place in Canberra. But we have managed to overcome those problems, at least to some extent. It is interesting to me that Mr Berry should say that, because the announcement made by the Federal Government this week with regard to aeroplane assembly is going to produce 150 jobs in Newcastle. Mr Berry has opposed a new private hospital for Canberra which will produce 200 jobs. For the life of me, I cannot understand his logic. If he thinks that aeroplane assembly in Newcastle is a really good deal for Newcastle - and I agree with him - why would he not think that 200 jobs in a new private hospital in Canberra was a good deal for Canberra? It shows the level of hypocrisy. Mr Berry also made the comment that we have not done anything with regard to increasing jobs. In one area and one area alone, our business incentive scheme - something that those opposite say they would not do - we have managed already to achieve $37m of new investment over the next three years and over 700 new jobs. That strikes me as a little bit better than nothing.

I have to say that those opposite have been enormously hypocritical in the debate already today. They have said that we really have to address the operating loss that the Government has. Yes, we are addressing that, and I have already explained how. Over the last two years, as we heard in question time, they have opposed contracting out the swimming pools - something that has saved the Government $800,000 over a full year and actually achieved more people using the pools at a cheaper cost. If more people are using the pools and it is costing us less, it would strike me as a very good deal, particularly if you are addressing an operating loss.

They opposed the Jindalee Nursing Home sale. Jindalee was costing the Government significant dollars. When we sold the Jindalee Nursing Home, two out of 31 Commonwealth Government standards were being achieved. It is now 29 out of 31. I would have thought that was a pretty good outcome. It is costing less and quality is better. Those opposite opposed that. They opposed agency-based bargaining. They opposed the efficiencies that we went ahead with in Health, efficiencies that will achieve some $27m over the three years of this Government. They amended the debits tax legislation to ensure that it cost us more money. They amended the rates and land tax legislation in a way that cost us $315,000 and has proven to be useful for nothing.

This does not show an opposition that is interested in addressing an operating loss. This side is addressing the operating loss. All those people opposite want to do is increase costs. They should tell us what taxes they would put up. That is what they have to do. They are telling us that they will not accept any of these savings, any of these efforts to bring our expenditure back under control. We are not allowed to address our wages bill. That is 70 per cent of our total expenditure in government, and probably more than that in lots of areas. We cannot go down the path of redundancies. That is simply unacceptable, so you rule that out. Health and education you rule out. That is more than half the budget. What they are basically saying is they do not want to address expenditure, but they will not tell us what taxes they would put up. Increasing taxes is the only option if they want to address the operating loss. They say they want to address the operating loss. They have said that all morning. They have said it over the last few months. But they have said that there will be no savings. That means more taxes.

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