Page 411 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 27 June 1989
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The Chief Minister herself has a personal interest in the program on arts and heritage within her department. Given the heavy focus on these issues at the present time, the Rally has no particular caveat to place upon the appropriation process, other than to indicate to the Chief Minister that she must resist glitzy calls upon funds for so-called arts activities by others who may be sitting with her across the Assembly.
The corporate management services of the Territory face a great challenge. In recent years the Board of Works in Melbourne has gone through a profound review, and similarly in Brisbane. It is time, Mr Speaker, that we moved away from a municipally based budget that functions on the basis of the roles of various public service branches.
The Appropriation Bill must contain and acknowledge the fact that the former Australian Public Service pyramidal structuring of this town has to cease and we must see a corporate strategy furthered in the ACT Administration. It is starting. It must be developed within this supply period, and aggressive moves must be made to ensure that the overlapping, the duplication, of functions which we revealed during question time are all brought to book and that there is a very close examination of the municipal service structure in this town.
One issue that concerns the Rally to a considerable extent, Mr Speaker, in this area is the duplication in the infrastructure services in this town. For example, we understand that ACTEW, the electricity and water authority, posts out 5,000 bills each day of the year to ACT residents, many of them on a suburb by suburb computer basis. What other instrumentalities in the ACT belonging to the ACT are posting out bills, how many forests are being cut down for this, when will we see examined the proposal for a central billing structure as modern corporations have developed elsewhere in the world, and will this reduce computer purchasing, usage, paper consumption, postal expenses and the rest?
Will these activities by the municipal services of Canberra also take account of levels of youth unemployment, for instance? Could the suburb by suburb billings not be carried out on a tender basis by letterbox droppers who could earn the funds which otherwise go to Australia Post?
Mr Wood: What; get all my bills at once?
MR COLLAERY: Well, you would be able to afford that. The law and justice allocation is very important and there have been increased calls for extra allocations to the Magistrates Court, a review of the present appointment to the Supreme Court in terms of numbers, and urgently required legislation, particularly in the mental health area. Funds must be allocated and appropriated in due course to those requirements.
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