Mr ELFERINK - 2001-05-29
Mr Speaker, yesterday on radio and here again this morning, we have heard the prophets of doom on my right speaking about the Territory’s fiscal management. In that radio broadcast they made specific claims in relation to certain projects and I am concerned, as other Territorians would be, about whether those claims are true. Can the minister tell us what happened to those projects in his portfolio from last year’s budget?
ANSWER
That is an excellent question, Mr Speaker, because it builds on the theme that the opposition have run with the previous two questions. They used the word ‘truth’ in one and in the other they talked about the CLP budget having little relationship to the ‘truth’.
It is important to go back through the year and to look at what we promised and whether we delivered. We will be doing exactly the same thing with this budget. We will be making announcements on what we will do for Territorians and, as we have done ever since we have been in government, we will deliver.
It is interesting to see ‘debt’ being treated as a dirty word and the Paul and Paul show coming out on the radio, as they did this morning and as they did this time last year, and denigrating the budget - often before it is delivered. I think that is the point: we are talking about an opposition that has their speeches written. They have their themes done. They do not go into the detail of the budget because to do so would explode the little fantasy that they run on. If you look back a year we can actually go to some of the things that we said we would do.
We said we would build the Palmerston Health Precinct. The opposition told the media that it wasn’t true, it was a fabrication, it wouldn’t happen. They said that we were making false claims, we were merely digging holes in the ground and scratching around. They then went on, when the thing started to appear out of the ground, to say, ‘Look, this isn’t happening quick enough.’ They then started to do some ridiculous theatrics by sending people into the precinct to ask for doctors and specialist appointments, and ringing over the phone, to try and run the myth that this was some giant facade of the like that you would see in Hollywood, and it wasn’t actually delivering services. They ran the line only recently that there were no doctors in the precinct. I can tell you that not only was the money well spent, but in the Family Medicine Clinic, which seemed to occupy a lot of their time, the Goodhand-Forrest joint venture commenced operating on 30 April, well within this financial year. They are seeing 70 or 80 patients a day. So, in the short year when these people have been saying that this is a falsehood and a fabrication, not only is it running but there are some thousands of Territorians who now use this precinct for their services. That is one little piece of mythology they ran last year.
The other thing they ran was the Royal Darwin and Alice Springs Hospitals. There were some very interesting quotes. We will hear them again this year. These quotes will be re-run. When opposition members talk about truth in budgets, perhaps they should go back a year and look at some of the things they said. I have a quote from Paul Henderson last year on the Alice and Darwin hospitals. I quote for the benefit of Hansard: ‘That’s if they actually go ahead and actually build those facilities they are talking about’. That was on the ABC Radio Morning program on 17 May 2000.
He then went on to talk about the estimated expenditure for 2000-01, ‘the year we are in, is $2m’. Again, this is a smoke-and-mirrors budget. ‘The committal target date for Alice Springs Hospital spending is June 2001. Right at the end of next financial year with no expenditure, zero for this financial year’. We have spent $16m, and these economic incompetents over there have absolutely no concept about how to read a budget paper. So when they come out and talk about truth, we have 16 million answers to give him Alice Springs alone, and they are all much bigger than zero.
The classic quote, though, is from the Leader of the Opposition. She took it one step further in the budget reply last year, and this is a quote again: ‘Even though the government has flaunted the return of this project to the capital works program at a cost of $16m, not one dollar of this amount is planned to be spent during 2000-01. This is tantamount to a fraud.’ The only fraud in this place is the Labor Party. They have absolutely no concept about issues that relate to the budget, particularly issues like program, cash, or design list. They have absolutely no concept when they go into the committee stage of the budget and they are given answers to these things. I warn Territorians that in the next week or so they will hear a lot of noise about this budget, but if some of them have been here at least a year, and many of them have, I suggest they go and look at this rhetoric that gets peddled out every year. In a year’s time we will again be able to demonstrate to Territorians that not only are the numbers in the book, but we deliver.
ANSWER
That is an excellent question, Mr Speaker, because it builds on the theme that the opposition have run with the previous two questions. They used the word ‘truth’ in one and in the other they talked about the CLP budget having little relationship to the ‘truth’.
It is important to go back through the year and to look at what we promised and whether we delivered. We will be doing exactly the same thing with this budget. We will be making announcements on what we will do for Territorians and, as we have done ever since we have been in government, we will deliver.
It is interesting to see ‘debt’ being treated as a dirty word and the Paul and Paul show coming out on the radio, as they did this morning and as they did this time last year, and denigrating the budget - often before it is delivered. I think that is the point: we are talking about an opposition that has their speeches written. They have their themes done. They do not go into the detail of the budget because to do so would explode the little fantasy that they run on. If you look back a year we can actually go to some of the things that we said we would do.
We said we would build the Palmerston Health Precinct. The opposition told the media that it wasn’t true, it was a fabrication, it wouldn’t happen. They said that we were making false claims, we were merely digging holes in the ground and scratching around. They then went on, when the thing started to appear out of the ground, to say, ‘Look, this isn’t happening quick enough.’ They then started to do some ridiculous theatrics by sending people into the precinct to ask for doctors and specialist appointments, and ringing over the phone, to try and run the myth that this was some giant facade of the like that you would see in Hollywood, and it wasn’t actually delivering services. They ran the line only recently that there were no doctors in the precinct. I can tell you that not only was the money well spent, but in the Family Medicine Clinic, which seemed to occupy a lot of their time, the Goodhand-Forrest joint venture commenced operating on 30 April, well within this financial year. They are seeing 70 or 80 patients a day. So, in the short year when these people have been saying that this is a falsehood and a fabrication, not only is it running but there are some thousands of Territorians who now use this precinct for their services. That is one little piece of mythology they ran last year.
The other thing they ran was the Royal Darwin and Alice Springs Hospitals. There were some very interesting quotes. We will hear them again this year. These quotes will be re-run. When opposition members talk about truth in budgets, perhaps they should go back a year and look at some of the things they said. I have a quote from Paul Henderson last year on the Alice and Darwin hospitals. I quote for the benefit of Hansard: ‘That’s if they actually go ahead and actually build those facilities they are talking about’. That was on the ABC Radio Morning program on 17 May 2000.
He then went on to talk about the estimated expenditure for 2000-01, ‘the year we are in, is $2m’. Again, this is a smoke-and-mirrors budget. ‘The committal target date for Alice Springs Hospital spending is June 2001. Right at the end of next financial year with no expenditure, zero for this financial year’. We have spent $16m, and these economic incompetents over there have absolutely no concept about how to read a budget paper. So when they come out and talk about truth, we have 16 million answers to give him Alice Springs alone, and they are all much bigger than zero.
The classic quote, though, is from the Leader of the Opposition. She took it one step further in the budget reply last year, and this is a quote again: ‘Even though the government has flaunted the return of this project to the capital works program at a cost of $16m, not one dollar of this amount is planned to be spent during 2000-01. This is tantamount to a fraud.’ The only fraud in this place is the Labor Party. They have absolutely no concept about issues that relate to the budget, particularly issues like program, cash, or design list. They have absolutely no concept when they go into the committee stage of the budget and they are given answers to these things. I warn Territorians that in the next week or so they will hear a lot of noise about this budget, but if some of them have been here at least a year, and many of them have, I suggest they go and look at this rhetoric that gets peddled out every year. In a year’s time we will again be able to demonstrate to Territorians that not only are the numbers in the book, but we deliver.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016