Ms LAWRIE - 2012-11-01
During the election your slogan was, ‘It’s about you, the voters’, but really it is all about you, the CLP. It is about you axing the Arafura Games, raising power prices, sacking public servants, scrapping home ownership schemes, putting 2500 banned drinkers back on the streets and, ultimately, trying to fund your election commitments by taking a wrecking ball to the budget. When will you do something positive for Territorians?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. When there is a calamity or some kind or a disaster, as we have seen recently, there comes the time when you need to clean up the mess. That is what we are required to do.
The underlying question remains unanswered, or perhaps does not perturb you at all, but it sits in the back of the minds of Territorians: what would have been the case if you were re-elected as the government? How would you have dealt with payment of the public service? How would you have managed the growing debt? How would you have protected the future of the Northern Territory from a change in interest rates? How would you have managed to accommodate the opportunities that are clearly there for the Northern Territory if there is a reassessment of our credit rating? You blithely walk on and pretend these issues do not exist.
There is so much we know on this side about the way you operated. Territorians have a sense of what they have been spared by changing the government. It is a real government which takes a real interest in the future of the Northern Territory. It is about the future of the Northern Territory. Heaven help us if we had the Labor government in power today managing the affairs and breaking promises because it would not have been able to pay its bills.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 113, Relevance. Is there anything positive you will do for Territorians?
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Please be seated.
Mr MILLS: It is very difficult, I assume, for you to see this; however, there is something called tough love where you have to make the right decisions. You just wait and see.
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: Yes, you can laugh and mock. Your character is to pay it up today - put it on the credit card and worry about it tomorrow. We are not that type of people. We manage our affairs in the best interests of our children and the children after them.
The legacy left will be an eminently positive one because we know what we are doing, have the courage to make the right decisions, and will take the Territory somewhere and put us in a position where we can take the opportunities presented to us, and they are enormous. You painted us into a corner. You have ratcheted up on the credit card and there is very little room to move. We are ensuring we will leave a real legacy people look back on. I do not think they pay much attention to the last legacy.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. When there is a calamity or some kind or a disaster, as we have seen recently, there comes the time when you need to clean up the mess. That is what we are required to do.
The underlying question remains unanswered, or perhaps does not perturb you at all, but it sits in the back of the minds of Territorians: what would have been the case if you were re-elected as the government? How would you have dealt with payment of the public service? How would you have managed the growing debt? How would you have protected the future of the Northern Territory from a change in interest rates? How would you have managed to accommodate the opportunities that are clearly there for the Northern Territory if there is a reassessment of our credit rating? You blithely walk on and pretend these issues do not exist.
There is so much we know on this side about the way you operated. Territorians have a sense of what they have been spared by changing the government. It is a real government which takes a real interest in the future of the Northern Territory. It is about the future of the Northern Territory. Heaven help us if we had the Labor government in power today managing the affairs and breaking promises because it would not have been able to pay its bills.
Ms LAWRIE: A point of order, Madam Speaker! Standing Order 113, Relevance. Is there anything positive you will do for Territorians?
Madam SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Please be seated.
Mr MILLS: It is very difficult, I assume, for you to see this; however, there is something called tough love where you have to make the right decisions. You just wait and see.
Members interjecting.
Mr MILLS: Yes, you can laugh and mock. Your character is to pay it up today - put it on the credit card and worry about it tomorrow. We are not that type of people. We manage our affairs in the best interests of our children and the children after them.
The legacy left will be an eminently positive one because we know what we are doing, have the courage to make the right decisions, and will take the Territory somewhere and put us in a position where we can take the opportunities presented to us, and they are enormous. You painted us into a corner. You have ratcheted up on the credit card and there is very little room to move. We are ensuring we will leave a real legacy people look back on. I do not think they pay much attention to the last legacy.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016