Page 1095 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 8 April 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Treasurer’s record in government is four consecutive deficits totalling just under a billion dollars.
Mr Smyth: So what are you doing now?
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR STANHOPE: Compare it with our record after six years of government—six consecutive surpluses, and GFS surpluses at that.
Mr Smyth: So what are you doing now?
MR STANHOPE: We now have an economy. It is actually appropriately balanced.
Mr Smyth: So what is your response?
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, you have repeatedly ignored my calls for you to cease interjecting. I therefore warn you.
MR STANHOPE: We have delivered six consecutive surpluses, strength in the bottom line, a balance sheet the envy of Australia and a capacity to weather the shocks that might come our way. And one of the shocks that we have to weather, of course, is the implications and the effects of eight consecutive interest rate rises over the last three years under the Liberal government. That is a shock to any system. The mismanagement of the Liberals federally led to runaway inflation, the intervention of the Reserve Bank and eight consecutive interest rate rises. $370 on an average Canberra mortgage is the legacy of the Liberals. Never forget it—$370 a month, month after month after month.
Mr Smyth: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR STANHOPE: Order, Mr Stanhope!
Mr Smyth: Just in case the Chief Minister forgot the question, it is: why are you failing to act in response to the slowing of the ACT economy?
MR SPEAKER: And the Chief Minister explained about past circumstances and how he has moved to fix it, I think.
Mr Smyth: Either he is or he is not, if you think. Perhaps he should come back to the answer. What is he going to do?
MR STANHOPE: What we have—
Mr Smyth: He cannot answer the question.
MR STANHOPE: What we have done is something that the Liberal Party has consistently failed to do in government. In its period of government it just ran with deficits. It did not run the economy. It did not create efficiencies. It did not put the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .