Budget Deficit
BUDGET DEFICIT
Mr ANDERSON: Did the Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Ethnic Affairs confirm yesterday that next year's budget deficit will blow out by almost 50 per cent to $1.5 billion? How will the Premier fund this shortfall, given moderate revenue projections, deferral of asset sales, a fall in dividend revenue and a limit on State borrowings? Will the Premier categorically rule out any tax increases?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Eastwood to order.
Mr GREINER: The honourable member for Liverpool remembers how to read fast. When he was a Minister and his department used to prepare things for him that he did not understand he used to read as quickly as he could with his head down.
Mr Anderson: I will be back doing it soon.
Mr GREINER: The honourable member will never be back doing it.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ermington to order for the second time.
Mr GREINER: I have been confirming the size of the budget deficit for some considerable time. I am glad someone noticed. It is a fact that the budget deficit has blown out by the order of $400 million, which is, with the exception of some things
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related to emergency relief and matters of that nature - which I assume honourable gentlemen opposite would consider desirable - entirely on the revenue side. Whose fault is that? Is it the Government's fault? Of course it is not. It is the fault of the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party. I am prepared to compare this Government's budget deficit blowout with the budget deficit blowout of the Australian Labor Party Government in Canberra, and indeed with that of every other State Government.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Ermington to order for the third time.
Mr GREINER: I am eternally grateful to the many members on the front and back treasury benches who pointed out that I had forgotten the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales in Sussex Street, which had a 50 per cent budget deficit blowout in one year.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Wyong to order.
Mr GREINER: What did the Australian Labor Party do?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Blue Mountains to order.
Mr GREINER: What did the Labor Party do in New South Wales when it found its revenue suddenly going down? It sacked all the people on maternity leave - some very good people whom this Government has had the sense to appoint to other positions because they are people of merit. It is the same sort of anti-female attitude shown by the Labor Party in Gosford.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Port Jackson to order for the second time.
Mr GREINER: The Labor Party in Gosford has taken a leaf out of the pages of the Australian Labor Party in Sussex Street. When it has a chance to really knock someone, it makes sure it knocks the women first.
[Interruption]
It is about time the honourable member for Heffron said something to defend the role of women in the Labor Party.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Heffron to order.
Mr GREINER: Why does the honourable member not defend Ms Rees, the rank-and-file candidate the Labor Party wants in Gosford to lose to the honourable member for Gosford at the next election? If the Labor Party wants a woman, why does the honourable member for Heffron not have the courage of her convictions and stand up to her mates on the New South Wales right and say that they ought to have a rank-and-file preselection?
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Wyong to order for the second time.
Mr GREINER: It does not matter whom the Australian Labor Party chooses, but it ought to give women a fair go.
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Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the honourable member for Bligh to order. There is far too much interjection. Though the Premier's words may be stimulating to some members, that is no excuse for members to interject in a totally disorderly and disgraceful fashion.
Mr GREINER: The young ladies from Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Kensington - a school that used to be in the electorate of the honourable member for Heffron - some of whom live in her electorate, would be dismayed that the honourable member and her party do not have the courage to give women a fair go.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I call the Minister for Justice to order. I call the honourable member for Londonderry to order.
Mr GREINER: Let me say something about the question asked by the honourable member for Liverpool. Earlier today the Leader of the Opposition said that the New South Wales budget had blown out and that he had the answer. He said, "We should have less spending on consultants, the senior executive service and advertising".
Mr SPEAKER: Order! I have intervened several times to give general directions that members should conduct themselves in an orderly fashion. I now have an extensive list of members who have been called to order from one to three times. All members who have been called to order to date are now deemed to be on three calls. If any of those members attract my attention again, they will leave the Chamber immediately. I call the honourable member for Gosford to order.
Mr GREINER: The other matters the Leader of the Opposition mentioned were advertising and cutting back in health administration. I am sure the Minister for Health Services Management noted that. When he seeks to further reduce the administration of health he can look forward to the support of the Australian Labor Party. Opposition members and members of the press gallery should ask the Leader of the Opposition how much those four initiatives would save - initiatives that he says are the answer to the budget problems of New South Wales, which are fewer than those of any other State in Australia with the exception of Queensland because it had a good National Party government. In reality Opposition members do not have a clue. They do not have an answer to the question. If the four great savings that the Leader of the Opposition puts forward were implemented, it would be difficult to find $50 million from the lot, even when the lid is screwed down as tight as possible. Opposition members, members of the press gallery and all commentators know that the New South Wales Labor Party does not have a clue about financial management. That was demonstrated for 12 years during the former Labor Government's administration, and its brothers and sisters elsewhere in Australia are demonstrating it at present.