Page 2121 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 May 2009
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it to remove the provision for growth that is built into our health budget? You could go some way towards balancing the books that way.
Is it to remove our wages provision? That is what they did last time they were in government. Actually, it needs to be remembered that this is the tactic of the Liberal Party in the delivery of a budget—remove wages provision from budgets. That is what we inherited when we came in in 2001—a budget with no real provision for wages. I will change that. It was one per cent. This was in a context where the then Liberal Minister for Health, Michael Moore, had actually been in the process of negotiating a 14 per cent pay rise. The provision that the then Treasurer, Gary Humphries, had made was one per cent. The negotiation actually resulted in an outcome of over 14 per cent, and we inherited that. That is the Liberal Party approach. It might be that they will take the growth factor out of the budget. It might be that they will take the wages provision out of the budget, or they would have if they had the opportunity, and that is what they will suggest again.
We could in this budget have massively cut services or massively increased taxes—both socially destructive paths at the very time when services are most needed and household budgets are most strained—or we could choose as we have chosen and as the people of Canberra have trusted us to choose. Despite the times we are making modest, prudent and targeted investments in the services that matter most to Canberrans: health, education, community safety, and city amenity. Coincidentally, they are the very areas that the Liberal Party want to cut.
I congratulate my colleague the Treasurer, Katy Gallagher, on a budget that is tough, but just. It is a budget that takes the Canberra community into the government’s confidence; it does not soften the bad news but points to better times in the future.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (4.32): Madam Assistant Speaker, I apologise in advance for my voice. I will see how we get through. One positive that has come out of this week for me is to really emphasise the difference between the government and the opposition and between the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Leader of the Opposition on our side.
What I have seen this week is a Chief Minister with an arrogant, bitter, bullying and hectoring approach who is quite prepared to play the man and quite prepared to play with the truth—in quite stark contrast to Mr Seselja, who has provided an alternate vision for Canberra, who has dealt with the facts comprehensively and who has today provided an eloquent, decisive and coherent strategy for the people of Canberra.
The Treasurer and Deputy Chief Minister is utterly clueless. The one tactic, of guessing, that we have seen seems to have now departed her; she has even run out of guesses in this budget. She is someone whose only role seems to be providing a human face to this government, someone who can stand in front of the cameras and shield the public from the arrogance and hostility that oozes out of Mr Stanhope—in contrast to Mr Smyth, who has provided, I think, a comprehensive, substantive response to the budget, one that really demonstrates his experience and knowledge of the facts and of the way a budget should be put together.
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