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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2096 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

believe. We were reducing expenditure, we were increasing taxation, and we were taking measures to reduce the outlays the territory was facing and to increase our capacity to be solvent. It is inconceivable in those circumstances, Mr Speaker, that we could have exacerbated or worsened the budget bottom line as a result of all those measures. As a result of all those measures, Mr Speaker, it is inconceivable.

Mr Quinlan: $91 million abnormal.

MR HUMPHRIES: If you do not believe me, go back and read what you yourselves were saying, what the Labor Party itself was saying, at that time about the budget. You were complaining about how much we were tightening the purse strings, how much we were tightening the belt, and what deprivations we were visiting on this community. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't claim that we were reducing expenditure and increasing taxation, and yet we were worsening the bottom line. It does not make sense, Mr Speaker. Everybody knows that $344 million is the minimum amount that was left to us by Labor.

Mr Quinlan: Not true.

MR HUMPHRIES: The minimum amount was probably a much higher figure in accrual terms because of the fact that considerable adjustments were made in the 1995-96 financial year dealing with the financial position.

Mr Quinlan: That's a falsehood.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Quinlan argues that augmenting funding in particular areas does not amount to initiative. I suggest that he look at what his party did in government and see how many initiatives of just that kind were described as initiatives and see how inconsistent he is in what he says tonight.

I do not understand his remarks about HIH being a bump in the road and some sort of problem. As the last monthly figures indicate, our budget position is very healthy at the moment, Mr Speaker. There is no problem in sustaining the $30 million we have given to victims of HIH. I do not think there is any question that it represents a problem for our budget management.

Mr Corbell criticises the community planning adviser, but, from what I have seen of Mr Corbell's description of changes in the planning area that he foreshadows under a Labor government, it does not sound to me as if what we have proposed is deserving of much criticism at all. In fact, I would like Mr Corbell at some stage to come in here and explain what he means by an independent planning authority. He obviously does not mean a planning authority which is independent of the government and that is free to make its own decisions free of government intervention, so the question is what does he mean?

Mr Speaker, as I said, he spoke up for the poor repeatedly, but failed to acknowledge that measures like reducing the motor vehicle registration fee and free school buses also impacts on the poor in this community.

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