Page 2892 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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Mr Mulcahy: I have seen the figures.
MR STANHOPE: So have the rest of us. You say it has been costed but you have just got rid of your first $20 million with the fire levy. Today, in the context of this matter of public importance, we have the Liberal Party, the opposition, the alternative government, saying, “This level of rates and charges is unacceptable. We will certainly abolish and abandon the wage price index.” Mr Mulcahy is on the record as saying that. There is another few million.
Mr Mulcahy: Do not mislead the house.
MR STANHOPE: Here we have it now. We get up in this place and beat our breasts about how wicked the wage price index is but do not for one minute think that we will abandon it. Here we have it now from the oracle himself, waxing lyrical against the evil of the wage price index as opposed to the CPI. Here he is today refusing to commit to abandon it. Here you have it, the shadow Treasurer will not even commit.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Opposition members, let us have a bit of decorum. Chief Minister, if you direct your remarks through me and not across the chamber we might mitigate some of this cross-border sparring.
MR STANHOPE: That sums this debate up—a debate about the impact of rates. We have heard the shadow Treasurer wax constantly, repetitively, ad nauseum one might say, about the wage price index but here we have it from his mouth today: “That does not mean that the Liberal Party in government will abandon it.” Here we have the words from his mouth, an acceptance by the shadow Treasurer that he will not abandon the wage price index. Humbug, humbug!
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Chief Minister, your time has expired.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (4.29): The talk was entertaining, and there certainly was a fair bit of humbug flying around. I am utterly amazed at the panic stricken way in which this government in its budget has imposed extra taxes and charges on the people of Canberra. It is all very well for the Chief Minister to say, “What are you going to do about it?” Chief Minister, we have already indicated a number of things that we certainly would not be proceeding with. We have indicated that in about six or seven areas, and we will continue to do that.
But one thing you need to appreciate is that you have still got two more years to run. You have got this territory into a god unholy mess in the four or five years you have had here to date. This panic budget is indicative of that. I remember you here in March or April of this year being very surprised, as no doubt you would be, to find an extra 2,500 public servants on the books. Where on earth did they come from? They came basically from the result of four years of just letting things drift. I concede there are probably about 500 of these you can well and truly justify. I am not too sure about the other 2,000. They are all people. Now you are starting to prune back there. That is fair enough; you needed to.
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