Page 2575 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 7 August 2013
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We have the glaring red box as the answer: ‘We’ll give it to you after you’ve passed your budget.’ So there goes the transparency that the Chief Minster talked about. There goes the new era of openness and accountability. It behoves the minister to present to the Assembly a true picture of the state of the budget as quickly as he knows it. And it behoves the Treasurer, when he knows that something is not accurate, to either provide the accurate data or to delay the debate.
The one-month delay will not affect what the government is doing. It has supply and there are traditions and processes that allow that to occur. But we should not be in the position where we have to vote for or against something when we do not know the full story, and what is in the document we now know not to be true. The Treasurer should have come forward with an amendment. We have had amended budgets before. In previous budgets where we tabled our budget before the federal budget, every now and then we would have a revision when some of the commonwealth numbers did not marry up or there was a change in circumstances.
We have done it before; it is not hard. But you have to ask the question: what are they hiding when they can argue with the ICRC with so much data that they can turn the decision around, so that the proposed $235 decrease in charges disappeared down to $80? So they were able to argue that successfully. Why cannot they tell the Assembly? Indeed why are the two shareholders not demanding that we have this number, and have it expeditiously? It is because the shareholders do not want to debate the appropriation bill with the real and accurate numbers in it.
I thought Mr Rattenbury would have some sympathy with this debate. We will see what Mr Rattenbury says. The Greens always tout themselves as the new way, the third force and as seeking collaboration, cooperation, honesty, openness and accuracy. Let us see if they actually do stand for that today. Let us see if there is a principle that stands the test of being in cabinet. He is always quoting the four pillars of what the Greens stand for. Let us see what the Greens stand for in this debate when it is called to a vote.
These are important issues, Madam Speaker. You have only to look at the admission from Mr Barr that there is no price too high for the cost of light rail and the admission from Mr Rattenbury on radio that even though he is on the committee he had not seen the documents. He had not seen the cost-benefit analysis. So there we are.
Mr Rattenbury: Not what I said and you know it.
MR SMYTH: You can tell us what you saw and what you have not seen, Mr Rattenbury. But he had not seen the documents and he is on the committee. So that is collaboration inside the government, isn’t it? That is that new spirit of participation and collaboration!
Of course, we have the tax reform—tripling your rates. We know that if they go up at 10 per cent a year, in about 11 years they will triple. But what we do not have from the minister is the facts from their side that they will not. He can lay this to rest today.
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