Page 2274 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 August 2007
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past six years, since taking over from the failed previous Liberal government, provided an environment that has led to those results. You can laugh about it, but in doing so you have to acknowledge that by suggesting it is only the commonwealth that has any relevance to business in the territory you then have to wonder about your seven years of government—admittedly, seven years in which you produced a net deficit of $685 million under the Australian accounting standard, or $1 billion under GFS. Heaven forbid what it would have been under pure GFS, but even under GFS as accounted by this government in this budget, it is at least $1 billion. Pure GFS is the system that Mr Mulcahy, if he is ever Treasurer, will institute. What a joke.
Mr Mulcahy is pontificating, pure as the driven snow, hand on heart, that if he is Treasurer it will be pure GFS or nothing. Let me tell you now: that is poppycock. No Liberal government will ever introduce it. You will not, because it distorts the result. That would create an accounting result that no other place in Australia utilises and would make us unique. He knows that. He has looked at it and has seen the error of his ways. He has gone a little bit quieter these days, and he knows that no ACT Liberal government will ever use pure GFS. I will conclude—
Mr Mulcahy: You talk about short speeches.
MR STANHOPE: After the nonsense that has been dished up, it had to be trodden on. I need to respond, though, to the two—I thought there was only one—policy announcements over the past week: one, that we will abolish the per cent for art scheme—a very bold and innovative policy announcement by Mr Mulcahy. It shows his commitment, as shadow minister for the arts, to the arts—the only shadow minister for the arts in the world that thinks funding for the arts should be reduced. It is one of those easy things to reduce in politics—just say we will belt the arts; nobody cares about that. It is easy politics, it is easy yards, but it is shallow and at its own level it is gutless as well, and he knows it in his heart.
It is so easy to rubbish the arts. The trouble Mr Mulcahy has is that everybody in this particular arts community is very vital and aware. The arts community knows that he does not support the arts. He is out there seeking to curry favour with the arts community, but he is not. It is interesting that it is so easy for him to schmooze at these arts events about how he is a great supporter of the arts but actually wants to kick it to death when he leaves the room. Similarly, the shadow minister for the arts announced that he will not support one of the most fantastic initiatives by ActewAGL, to restore the chimney at the glassworks with what would have been one of the most remarkable artistic achievements imaginable. Today he declared that a Liberal government would not support that either.
The other great policy announcement we have heard of in this past week in the dissenting report was the decision to abolish A10. We await with great interest the system that will replace it, the free-for-all that will apply, the law of the jungle or perhaps just nothing at all. I would love to see how the property council and the other friends in business respond to those two options—an unregulated free-for-all or a complete ban on any redevelopment at all. That is a lovely little policy dilemma that has been delivered, and we wait with great interest to see how you deal with it.
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