Savings Targets

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:06): Supplementary, Mr President: isn't it a fact, Treasurer, that this government has a choice not to continue with previous government programs, as you have already outlined, including efficiency dividends, and therefore any efficiency dividends that are continued will be Liberal government efficiency dividends?

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Treasurer.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (15:06): Mr President, that would, in the very short period that we have been in this chamber since the election, have to rival one of the silliest questions that I have heard in this chamber. It demonstrates the former minister's very inadequate understanding of finance and budget related matters. The simple fact—

The Hon. K.J. Maher interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Leader of the Opposition, we do not need a running diatribe; and, minister, please do not encourage the Leader of the Opposition. Treasurer, continue.

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: I have not said anything to the Leader of the Opposition. I am answering the question from the Hon. Mr Hunter. I ignore the Leader of the Opposition. Mr President, the Hon. Mr Hunter asked one of the silliest questions that has been asked since the election.

The simple fact is that money does not grow on trees, unlike the honourable member seems to be suggesting. What he is saying is, 'Well, you don't have to continue with the hundreds of millions of dollars of efficiency dividends that the former government locked into agency forward estimates and some of the commitments that have been made and some that have to be continued with in terms of the ongoing commitments.'

If the former government has signed an enterprise agreement with nurses, with teachers, with doctors, etc., the honourable member seems to be suggesting, 'Well, you just don't have to continue with those.' Well, that is just not the reality. That is where a lot of the money goes. The honourable member does not have to worry about managing a budget anymore. He did not worry about it when he was a minister.

The reality is that, unlike the fertile mind of the former minister, money does not grow on trees. So, Mr President, with respect to the efficiency dividends, the former ministers will not be able to run away from their responsibility in relation to the cuts and the efficiency dividends that they announced in the December Mid-Year Budget Review in the week just prior to Christmas.

So they will not be able to hide, and, Mr President, in political terms they will be fingered with the responsibility for those particular savings and those particular efficiency dividends. They will not be able to run, they will not be able to hide because they will be held accountable for the decisions that they have taken.

We will happily accept responsibility for any decisions that we take, but former ministers, discredited as they might be, will have to take responsibility for the decisions, and the ramifications of the decisions, that they took in that Mid-Year Budget Review, which they gleefully supported and cheered for around the cabinet table.