Page 1079 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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For a community that held some fears that self-government would result in soaring costs to the taxpayer and severe reductions in standards of delivery of government services, it must provide a warm, comfortable feeling. The problem with that, Mr Speaker, is that it is not a time for being steady as she goes. There are major issues that need to be addressed: Costs of public services must be reduced; the private sector must be fostered as an increasing source of job opportunities and an expanding revenue base; and the excess expenditure identified by the Grants Commission must be eliminated within two years from now.
So the situation called for a much more challenging budget, a more innovative budget, one that addresses the problems rather than avoids them. Such a budget could have been devised without causing serious concerns in the community.
On the general question of community consultation, Mr Speaker - and that is the reason why this release of the draft took place - I think it is fair to say that any persons or organisations wishing to participate in the consultative process are in for a frustrating time.
The first thing they will discover is that the Chief Minister's budget statement is not a stand-alone document. In fact, it is meaningless without the three-year forward estimates report. Even with the two documents, the picture is incomplete, and any member of the community seriously attempting to get a cohesive picture of the draft budget as the basis for constructive input will find it necessary to seek further amplification before the Government's intentions can be discovered.
For example, the budget statement does not include sufficient financial information to enable the reader to ascertain the total amount budgeted for expenditure by the Government in this budget year or how much the Government expects to collect by way of revenue. Reference to the companion document, the forward estimates report, will not provide the total figures either. It is necessary, firstly, to calculate the totals of expenditure and revenue in the recurrent element of the budget, using information which the initiated can find in the two documents, but some readers, of course, will be unable to do this exercise.
So the most basic pieces of budgetary information - total expected expenditures and total expected revenues - are not provided in these budgetary documents. It would be most difficult, if not impossible, for some people to comment on elements of the budget and their relationships without the ability to relate those elements to the budget total.
A second problem with the document arises from a lack of detail. A particularly serious case of omission is that the budget statement provides no information about the gross level of general rates expected to be collected this year. Indeed, the only reference to rates revenue is to
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