Page 630 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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to maintain those standards and to maintain the amenity of the city and its image as our national capital. But the Commonwealth cannot abdicate - it cannot be allowed to abdicate - its role in ensuring that its responsibility to this Territory is recognised and maintained.
The other day we spoke at some length about aspects of Grants Commission inquiries and the degree to which they were relevant. I think to some degree that is water under the bridge. I have already stated it as a principle that the Grants Commission should be available to conduct reviews at our request - and I repeat, at our request.
The Commonwealth, of course, will continue to conduct periodic reviews of the ACT along with the other States and the Northern Territory, but I submit that there will be times when we may want to have a special inquiry done into the continuing situation of the Australian Capital Territory in isolation from all of that and we should have the power to seek cooperation from the Commonwealth Grants Commission to perform such studies.
Mr Duby mentioned things like over-standard expenditure and I agree with the point that he was making there. All States, the Northern Territory and this Territory in some elements of public expenditure maintain their levels above the standard determined by the Grants Commission. But let us be clear that the standard determined by the Grants Commission, using their fiscal equalisation approach, is arbitrary.
No State makes its expenditures at the standard levels. That is true of whichever element of expenditure you look at. It is an arbitrary standard against which the States and the territories are compared. So it is quite wrong to argue that because in the ACT expenditure levels per capita in education and health are greater than they are anywhere else in Australia we should set about reducing those levels of expenditure. It is a decision for this community to make as to whether it wants to maintain its expenditures at a level above standard - or for that matter at a level below standard. The Grants Commission merely makes an arbitrary determination that you are or are not above or below a standard and, as I say, that is a matter of community determination.
If we cannot afford the over-standard, then we may be forced to pull our expenditures back, but it is improper for the Commonwealth, as it has done over a number of consecutive years, to make a judgment that we are over-standard and that therefore the expenditures in those areas must be reduced. The Commonwealth has attempted to do it over a two- or three-year period and we have to make sure that the standards in health and education do not decline because we are required to make reductions against this arbitrary standard.
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