Page 1106 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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treading in to fill his shoes and making incredibly false claims and allegations about imagined $390 million deficits growing out of a midyear forecast review of $16.8 million. No such claims or statements were made. The midyear review forecast operating loss for 2008-09 remains $16.8 million. Here we have the Leader of the Opposition conjuring up, for the purpose of gaining some traction and probably comparing himself to his challenger, Mr Mulcahy, an imagined figure. It is interesting to dwell on the operating loss or the risk that would grow an anticipated deficit of $16.8 million to $390 million. The mind boggles that the Leader of the Opposition believes that a reported budget deficit of $16.8 million in the space of three months can grow to a deficit of $390 million.
Mr Smyth: He is smarting.
MR STANHOPE: I am not smarting. I am just amazed that anybody could believe that a reported deficit of $16.8 million could grow to a reported, claimed, alleged deficit of $390 million in the space of three months. Jeepers, that is a big unanticipated risk to rear its ugly head in the space of three months. The mind boggles that anybody could make such an amazingly or appallingly misguided or misjudged claim or assessment. The egg on the face will be there for all to see.
The bottom line is that this motion is not unexpected. It is the sort of thing that one would expect. I cop it. I, in opposition, moved motions of this particular order, seeking the release of documents, confident in the knowledge that the motion would not be successful, as the Liberal Party, in this particular case, is. They know this is just part of the tactics, the to and fro, the push and pull of adversarial Westminster politics. We all know that and accept it. We moved motions such as this, seeking documents on a whole raft of issues across the board time and time again, and they were always refused because there are, at the end of the day, fundamental principles on good governance, good cabinet governance, on cabinet documents being, at least in the context of the decision-making process, reserved for that purpose.
The Leader of the Opposition makes an interesting point—I do not think he was aware he was making it—on New South Wales Premier Iemma’s response. The point is that my government has had this document for less than a month. We are in the process of preparing our response to this document. We will prepare and release our response to this document in the budget. At the time that we release our response to this document, we will, in the very terms that Professor Bartos uses, be releasing significant details of the basis on which the fall rate—
Mr Smyth: That is a shift.
MR STANHOPE: It is not a shift at all. We are not releasing the document, but we will do exactly what Professor Bartos suggests. We are going to prepare our response first, as you would expect we would. We have not yet, as a government, responded to this document; we have not finalised or concluded our configuration of it. We will do precisely what Premier Iemma did.
MR SPEAKER: The minister’s time has expired.
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