Page 1080 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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the additional expected revenue from general rates this year, an additional amount of $5.54m, presumably compared with general rates revenue last year, although the document does not say that. However, reference to the companion document will not help either, because the details under program 4, ACT financial management, have been consolidated, and the amount to be collected by way of general rates is simply not separately stated. So the reader can deduce nothing about the gross level of general rates to be collected this year. Since administration of the municipality of Canberra is a matter of considerable interest to some residents, the omission of such vital information is, in my view, of some considerable concern.
Another general problem is the lack of logic or rationale for particular budgetary initiatives. The budget is presented in program format. It would be reasonable to assume that the Government's priorities have been applied across the various programs and that levels of expenditure or revenues in each program are the result of conscious and deliberate government decision. Furthermore, it would be reasonable to assume that specific provisions for expenditure, for example, against particular items within a program are the result of deliberate decision, but there is no evidence that such an assumption can be sustained.
Let me take as an example the particular stated intention to provide 280 dwellings as an addition to the existing stock of public housing. It is not clear, for instance, where in the budget the necessary financial provision is made for the expenditures associated with these dwellings. Presumably it is included in the public housing program in the companion document, the forward estimates report, but, if so, it is not identified as such. You cannot find it there.
But more importantly, the rationale for adding 280 dwellings to the public housing stock is nowhere given. Indeed, the objective for the public housing program is stated simply to be "to enable the ACT community to obtain appropriate and affordable housing". No figures are given showing how many publicly owned housing units are required, how many have already been provided, how far the 280 units proposed for this year will go towards eliminating any existing shortfall, and so on. So I must raise the question: How can any community member or organisation, or even the Government for that matter, make a judgment about the need, adequacy and appropriateness of expenditures on this item under these circumstances of inadequate or, indeed, no information?
The same argument applies to other items - for example, the proposed additional 50 aged persons units, and no doubt to many other items in the budget as well. One must conclude, Mr Speaker, that the community consultation exercise will be virtually an impossibility from the community's viewpoint. Given the lack of information contained in these documents, one could even question whether the
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