Mr GREG WARREN (Campbelltown) (15:19): I am delighted to make a contribution to debate on this motion. I thank my colleague for bringing it to the House because it again provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the facts of the past. You will not often find me agreeing with the member for Hornsby, but I do agree with him that it did not have to be this way. As a reasonably new government, we found ourselves with an inherited debt due to the mismanagement of the previous Liberal‑Nationals Government in New South Wales.
Mr James Wallace: How is debt related? Debt has nothing to do with the opex side of the budget.
Mr Mark Hodges: Look forward, don't look backwards. What are you doing? Why don't you solve the problem?
TEMPORARY SPEAKER (Mr Michael Kemp): Opposition members will come to order.
Mr GREG WARREN: Once the kids have finished, I will continue. It would not have to be this way if we did not inherit more than $180 billion in debt and over a decade of frozen wages. I do not blame rail workers for being angry, like everyone else who had to suffer under the wages cap imposed by the Coalition. Of course they are going to come out hard when New South Wales has a new government that is good at economic management and is sympathetic to the workers. I do not blame them. But the reality is that the Minister, the Premier, the Cabinet and this Government have done something that the previous Government never did with those workers: They have been honest with them. The Government is honest with them when it says it has debt and it does not have the money.
We know what we would like to do, but we have to be able to pay for it. That is, quite simply, the position that we found ourselves in at that time. I acknowledge the hard work of the former transport Minister, the member for Summer Hill, as well as the current transport Minister. We inherited a network that made the Burma Railway look like Grand Central Station. It was absolutely falling apart. I do not have the figure in front of me, but the joint was broken. It was at a stage where, if it got hot or it rained, the network would shut down because of the maintenance backlog. I note that the Minister, and member for Macquarie Fields, is in the Chamber. He catches public transport. We both live in the most outer south-west Sydney electorates from which to commute into the city. We do not like catching the train for our chats and catch ups; we do it because we have to, like so many other residents. But the reality is that we find ourselves in a situation that we must address.
I know it is fun for members opposite to continue to beat up on workers, unions and union bosses. What does the member for Hornsby want? He is saying, "You didn't have resolve." The Government went to the Fair Work Commission and it won. That is why we are now where we are at. On the other hand, he is saying, "Just give them their pay rise." How are we going to pay for it? No wonder the joint is broke. The Coalition ran around for more than a decade. A drunken sailor has more sense when leaving Rockers in Woolloomooloo at 2.00 a.m. than any of those members opposite have right now. It is absolutely amazing. Opposition members want to attack the union support of Labor candidates, but I do not hear them carrying on about the Exclusive Brethren's support of the Liberal Party. I note the brethren did not support the National Party. The Opposition can go back to throwing those cheap shots. It is low-hanging fruit from low-flying politicians. Opposition members should look in the mirror and see they are part of the cancer, not the cure. [Time expired.]
