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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 2 Hansard (6 March) . . Page.. 637 ..

MR QUINLAN: Yes. There is a whole list of items that actually go to the conclusion that, as I said very politely, the budgets that we inherited were entirely deficient. They did not include stuff that you made promises to do-the medical school, NICTA. Yes, they were in that; they were going to do that. The did not include it. Nowadays, we have a more honest budget.

MR STEFANIAK: I have a supplementary question. Treasurer, are we heading down a slippery slope towards the $344 million deficit which was the legacy of the Follett Labor government with your honest budget?

MR QUINLAN: I have gotten away with this one before, Mr Speaker, but stop me if the rules have changed. Anybody who says that Labor delivered a $344 million deficit is a liar.

Mr Smyth: Mr Speaker, perhaps you might like to rule on that. The implication is that members are lying. I think that the minister should withdraw that.

MR SPEAKER: I think that should be withdrawn, Mr Quinlan. Opposition members are saying that $344 million was the number. That is not parliamentary language and I would like it to be withdrawn.

MR QUINLAN: I withdraw. I have actually gotten away with it a couple of times before in this house, so why not give it a crack?

MR SPEAKER: I will be more alert next time.

Mr Stefaniak: Try something different, Ted.

MR QUINLAN: How about something more contemporary-parroting misinformation? To repeat a little history for the benefit of the newer members of the opposition, and I notice that Mr Pratt parrots misinformation regularly-

Mrs Dunne: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. If we are repeating history, aren't we being tedious and repetitive?

MR QUINLAN: I am not getting tired.

MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne, it depends on the favoured history which is being repeated. I call Mr Quinlan to wind up, I suspect.

MR QUINLAN: Might I say, in referring to history for the benefit of new members of the house-in particular, Mr Pratt, who does parrot misinformation-that there was a process of accounting for 1995-96 that produced as a bottom line a deficit of $344 million. That included abnormal items of some $90 million which were not to do with operations. But, of more interest to Mr Pratt, it was the middle year of the first Carnell government that produced that recorded result. I don't know how thick you are, but I hope that it gets through to you that in 1995-96-

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