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Ms TANYA GADIEL: My question without notice is addressed to the Premier. What is the latest information on any threats to the triple-A credit rating or the New South Wales unemployment rate, and related matters?
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Last week we welcomed the reaffirmation of New South Wales' triple-A credit rating by international ratings agency Standard and Poor's.
Mr Alan Ashton: Big tick!
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: Big tick, as the honourable member for East Hills said. The agency's report was a continuing endorsement of the Government's management of the State's economy.
Ms Peta Seaton: You can't control spending.
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: The honourable member for Southern Highlands claims we cannot control spending. We will come to spending in a moment—the sooner the better. Standard and Poor's said it expected New South Wales will rein in expenditure levels and meet its budgeted return to an operating surplus, unlike the Opposition, which continues to make wild and unachievable spending commitments. The Leader of the Opposition continues to add to his $20 billion spendometer, which is ticking over faster than the Liberal Party membership tally in Cherrybrook. The spendometer is so out of control and so unrealistic that today we give the Coalition's outrageous spending a new name.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member for Murrumbidgee will come to order.
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: It is no longer the spendometer. For the benefit of the honourable member for Southern Highlands, she can refer to it as the Peter meter. The Leader of the Opposition is on record as saying that people will be looking for someone with strong economic credentials to lead New South Wales. He boasts that he and the Leader of The Nationals each holds a Master of Business Administration [MBA] degree and that is why they can be trusted with the State's finances—just like the chief executive and the chief financial officer of Enron boasted of their MBAs as they bankrupted the $150 billion company.
In 1980 to 1981 the Leader of the Opposition also claimed that he enrolled in a BA part time at Macquarie University. However, he lists it as "not completed due to work commitments". A perusal of his parliamentary record also shows a mysterious job on an old curriculum vitae that reads, "1985 to 1986 self-employed. Owner/operator of a Fitness Centre." Strangely, the Leader of the Opposition has erased that reference in all future resumes; it has been airbrushed out of his past. Public records reveal that there were no registered business names by gym owner-operator Peter Debnam, so it is difficult to know what sort of fitness centre it was. But jazzercise was very popular in the eastern suburbs in those days. I can just picture the lycra unitard, the headband and the leg warmers!
To continue, between 1987 and 1992 the Leader of the Opposition was a director of South Pacific Hatcheries, an aquaculture and prawn research business. When he signed on, the net profit of that company was $129, but with him on board the fisheries company suddenly tanked, recording a loss of $95,000. In 1990 the Leader of the Opposition took the fish tank business into liquidation. He then went on to torpedo another healthy company, David Russell Stock and Station Agents. Prior to the 1990 appointment of the Leader of the Opposition the company had shown a profit of $30,000, but in less than a year he had turned it around to record a net loss of $19,363.
Luckily for the company the Leader of the Opposition resigned as a director in February 1992 and it went on to make a miraculous recovery. Four months after he left, the company stumbled out of debt to record a modest profit of just over $2,000. With the Leader of the Opposition just a bad memory, a year later it stormed back to its pre-Debnam position with a profit of just under $40,000. That business brilliance is also being remembered as the Leader of the Opposition fumbles over his 29,000 job cuts, which cannot be done without slashing the jobs of police, teachers and nurses. No wonder he is backing away from it now.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! Members will stop calling out.
Mr MORRIS IEMMA: This morning he told the Sydney Morning Herald that the figure of 29,000 was not his number. It is a pity that on 22 and 23 February this year the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him at that number and even higher. The Leader of the Opposition will seek to hide from another statistic. If he puts his 29,000 front-line workers on the employment scrapheap, the State unemployment rate will jump from 5.1 per cent to almost 6 per cent. If he got his hands on the Treasury benches, New South Wales would be just behind Tasmania with the highest unemployment rate in the country. That is the Leader of the Opposition's plan for New South Wales.
With the illustrious Peter meter now topping $20 billion, I have offered the Leader of the Opposition an amnesty. I recognise he has been caught short on his spending promises, so I am willing to stop the clock briefly at $20 billion. He can tell us now which projects he would like to back out of, which promises he would like to scale back, and which ones he made in the heat of the moment and would like to take off the list. When the estimates committee hearings are concluded whatever has not been adjusted, withdrawn or refined will stand as the Coalition's official spending commitments. It will stand as the official Peter meter. I say to the Leader of the Opposition, "Take this opportunity, this is your chance." The honourable member for Parramatta asked what we saw as the biggest threat to the State's finances. It is the Peter meter—the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr Peter Debnam: Point of order—
Mr SPEAKER: The point of order is in relation to what?
Mr Peter Debnam: I lay upon the table the words of—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The standing orders do not permit the Leader of the Opposition to table anything.
Mr Peter Debnam: If he just steps over the line—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. I suggest to him that before the session gets under way he should brush up on his knowledge of the standing orders.
Mr Peter Debnam: Mr Speaker—
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
Mr Peter Debnam: I would get a copy of the standing orders if we stuck to the standing orders and if there were the same rules for this side as there were for that side.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat.
Mr Peter Debnam: Mr Speaker, you have only seven months. You cannot protect them all the time.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The only person contravening the standing orders is the Leader of the Opposition.