Page 483 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 June 1989
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Finance, Senator Walsh, its benefit to the Northern Territory is still being felt 10 years after self-government because the Federal Government could not renege as it has done with us.
I believe that the issues that I have outlined already are crucial ones for the future of this Territory and this parliament, but none is more urgent or important than a fourth Grants Commission inquiry immediately to claim special assistance to the ACT as a claimant State. So I shall enlarge further upon this vital matter.
It is evident that the Commonwealth and many administrators in this Territory have been greatly influenced by a misinterpretation of the Grants Commission's previous reports. The Department of Finance in the past two years has quoted over-standard expenditure, according to the commission, as being a basis for substantial cuts to the ACT budget. Recently, Mr Alan Woods, chairman of the Hospitals Board, was quoted as saying that because the Grants Commission found that our expenditure on hospitals in the ACT was over the average standard of the other States we must cut back on expenditure on hospitals in this Territory. We believe this is a profound misinterpretation of the Grants Commission reports and is causing significant harm to the welfare of the people of this Territory. It can only be rectified by our proposed inquiry and prompt action by this Assembly.
The basis for our claim is as follows: There is absolutely no requirement under the fiscal equalisation principles adopted by the commission for individual expenditures, say, on health or education, to be equal to the standard of the States. These expenditures have varied and always will vary between States considerably.
The commission again emphasised in its third report that the Commonwealth's subvention to the ACT recommended does not indicate the total dollar amount it would consider appropriate for a self-governing ACT. The commission made specific mention of the need for an appropriate phasing in period in making the adjustments required to place the ACT on a comparable basis with the States in accordance with strict fiscal equalisation principles. This period has been truncated by the actions of the Commonwealth at the Premiers Conference.
I will not seek to canvass in detail the substantial reservations which the Grants Commission placed on its last report and which have been ignored by virtually everybody since, but I seek leave of the House to place in Hansard pages 27 and 28 of the commission's third report of 1988 on financing the ACT for members to peruse at their leisure.
The overriding point is that the report of 1988 drawing its data from 1986-87 should have no bearing on the budget considerations or the Commonwealth's financial responsibility to the ACT under self-government. Only a
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