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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1797 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

We have to bear in mind, though, that an expansion of that space comes at a cost, which is ultimately borne by the territory. This government continues to support community organisations to a very extensive degree, in fact to a greater degree overall than any previous government in this territory. We have, for example, recently increased grants to community organisations in the ACT by 10 per cent to cover their costs of GST, and further agreed not to ask them to return any embedded wholesale sales tax savings to the ACT, as every other state government in Australia is doing, to the best of my knowledge. That amounts to a gift in the outyears of something like $1.2 million to community organisations in the ACT. So we have nothing to apologise about in respect of our support for those organisations, and we will explore the issues they have raised in respect of section 56.

MR QUINLAN: My question is to the Treasurer. I refer to the oft-quoted figure of $344 million that has been claimed as a starting point for the Carnell government. Will the Treasurer confirm that this result is the bottom line for the 1995-96 financial year, after a full year of Carnell government, from a report brought down half-way through the first Carnell Assembly? Will the Treasurer also confirm that the Carnell government's budget for that year had a $144 million deficit? Did the Carnell government blow the budget that it set for its first full year of government by $200 million, according to the figures that you are peddling?

MR HUMPHRIES: Again, Mr Speaker, another raw nerve. There are a lot of exposed nerves around the place at the moment. All I can say is that I am glad we have extra money available for health, given all these raw nerves that are exposed all over the place at the moment in this place. I repeat the answer I gave the other day.

Mr Quinlan: Answer the question, Gary-1995-96?

MR HUMPHRIES: If Mr Quinlan is not interested in my answer, I am not going to waste my breath, Mr Speaker. Let me say this to him.

Mr Quinlan: Find an excuse to sit me down. Please sit me down Mr Speaker.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am sorry, I can still barely hear myself talk. First of all, the 1995-96 budget was delivered by the previous Treasurer, not by me, so I cannot answer detailed questions about what happened in that budget. I will provide this information, and you can explore your own budget papers from that year, Mr Quinlan, as well as I can.

MR SPEAKER: Order, please! Otherwise, I will have to ask the minister to repeat the answers.

Mr Quinlan: We would love to hear that again.

MR SPEAKER: Some of you presumably would like to be here for some votes later this day. Then I suggest that you keep silent.

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