Page 2319 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005
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There are a few other things in this report that ought to be addressed. We are accused, I think, of wasting money at Phillip Oval by Mr Mulcahy and Mr Seselja, while Mr Stefaniak supports it. We have a dissertation in the dissenting report on over expenditure in health, $104 million being mentioned, and then in another part of the same 82-page dissenting report they would redirect some of the money we are spending into—where?—health. On the one hand, in their own paper, we are overspending on health and in the same paper they would spend more on health. This is the level of debate that we are facing.
When you go further through the report and see the criticisms of some of the community initiatives that the government has taken, you get a picture of what a Liberal government would be like in the ACT. You get a picture of no human rights. You get a picture of no inclusion. You get a picture of just sticking to helping business and cutting taxes and that is it. This would be a very sterile community, particularly if Mr Mulcahy got anywhere near the levers of power.
There is criticism of the various initiatives that the government have taken in promoting business and building the economy, and we have quite a number of initiatives, and we have had Mr Smyth in very recent times talking about spending money on a film industry and spending money on a fashion industry. At the same time, we have his own confederates criticising money that government would spend on business development. I just think that what we have in this dissenting report is just any old criticism you can think of without thinking it through and without even any consensus in the party room. Quite clearly, in many ways the dissenting report is at odds with the utterance of the hitherto Leader of the Opposition.
We have criticism about the sale of Williamsdale quarry, a Liberal government mess. We have criticism of TransACT. Who introduced TransACT to the ACT? Let me say that these days, I am happy to advise, TransACT is on a better business footing than it was, but let me also say that TransACT was introduced by a Liberal government. It even employed a former Liberal Chief Minister for a while in the heady days when money was going down the tube. It is now on a better business footing. We have criticism of the government because it owns a TAB. Let me tell you that if I had an opportunity personally to own a TAB I would, and I would not be selling it.
Overall, I think we can say that the 82-page dissenting report has been on quite a number of fronts ill-informed. That is the major criticism I have of the Liberal Party’s reaction to the budget. It is totally ill-informed but, secondly, it does not reconcile with utterances that have come from the Liberal Party in the past and there has been no clear delineation of policy. We saw their election campaign, God help us, and it did not really give us much of an idea of Liberal policy. Mr Speaker, in some ways I look forward to the budget debate that will take up a considerable amount of the Assembly’s time over the next couple of days because I really challenge the mob over there to reconcile the claims that they have made with the facts. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (10.55): Mr Speaker, I would like to make some comments in relation to the government’s response. Whilst we have had only a short
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