Page 1664 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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administration and to supply better quality services at the same cost and staffing levels. There is an abundance of talent within the public service. Our responsibility is to allow that talent to be used, to encourage that talent.
Before the budget was brought down we were told that public consultation was operating. I commend the principle of public consultation, but did we get that? I suggest not. I believe that basically what we got was a typical consensus of big business, trade unions and token community representation. If there had been any truth in the suggestion of public consultation, for a start the Chief Minister should have invited me into the consultative process. That was not even done. I suggest that the suggestion of public consultation, community consultation, is basically untrue.
What we need to do is balance the budget. With the Estimates Committee we can look at things that need to be done. Cuts will have to be made sooner or later. Like heroin, the later they come, the harder they are to make. We must, as the Capital Territory, ensure in all ways and by using all avenues that the Federal Government accepts its responsibility for setting up the Capital Territory as the nation's capital and then forcing many of the payments for it upon people who live here. It should not wait for the Grants Commission next year. That is an absolute nonsense. Writing one or two letters to the Prime Minister is not the answer. Let us take some action. Canberrans should only pay for what is rightfully their responsibility.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.19): Mr Speaker, Canberra's first budget after self-government should have been an opportunity to set the ACT on a course that will lead to a sound and financially viable and prosperous future for the people of this Territory. Indeed, as we said during the campaign, we have to get it right from the start. But the fact is, Mr Speaker, that this budget is, as the Leader of the Opposition has pointed out, in all respects a wasted opportunity.
I am going to restrict my remarks to the areas of health, education and welfare and show in those areas how much of a wasted opportunity it really is. This minority Labor Government is relying heavily on a public relations stunt to boost its credibility, and that stunt is very much part of this budget. Public relations stunts particularly include the budget consultative committee. The fact is that the whole process was nothing more than a sham. The Government is attempting to say that it has backed down on cuts in health, education and welfare as a result of the budget consultative process.
There are two comments to make in respect of that. First of all, when I look at those so-called backdowns and at the way the debate was orchestrated in this sort of area, I have to confess to a very strong suspicion that much of
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