Page 1693 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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it for their thoughtful comments on the Appropriation Bill in its in-principle stage. Mr Speaker I would like to echo Mrs Grassby's remarks when she said that she was proud of the budget. I am very proud of it as well. Even more to the point, I think that, having heard the diversity of view expressed in this Assembly today, the Assembly should leap upon this budget with glad cries and pass it at the first possible moment, because it seems to me that we have heard such a diversity of view that it is really difficult to draw any coherent line from the floor of the Assembly on how the ACT's economy should be managed.
From Mr Kaine we have heard - I appreciate his view; we have heard it before - that we should be making a greater effort towards addressing the Grants Commission's assessed overfunding of the ACT. We have heard also from Mr Kaine that we should be making a much greater effort towards reducing expenditure in the health and education areas, and that is something that Mr Kaine mentioned previously in his remarks on the initial budget statement when he said:
Turning to specific cost cutting proposals in education and health - operations identified by the Commonwealth Grants Commission as attracting expenditure significantly above standard - I am compelled to observe that the Government has not bitten the bullet. The reductions proposed are, in general terms, only nibbling around the edges of the problem.
So, clearly, from Mr Kaine and from the Liberal Party we have the view that we should be reducing expenditure even further in this budget. We also have a view from Mr Kaine that the Government should be selling off some of our assets, such as Jindalee, the Queen Elizabeth II home and the ACT Health Authority building. This is a tactic that the Liberal Party is using in New South Wales, and it is one way of raising money to meet difficulties in your local economy. It is not a way that the Labor Party favours. I think that that kind of selling off of public assets is not something that we would wish to indulge in.
Mr Jensen: They have done it in Canberra. What about the Belconnen Mall?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Jensen brings to my attention the question of the Belconnen Mall. May I place on the record here that the ACT branch of the Labor Party was totally and unitedly opposed to the sale of the Belconnen Mall.
Mr Speaker, Mr Kaine also, by implication rather than by direct mention, indicated to me that he does not think that bureaucrats do anything and that we should have made much greater cuts in the areas of administration. I would like to assure the Assembly that the cuts in expenditure that we have made have been applied pretty evenly but, if there is an area that has borne a heavier burden than others, it is that very administrative area. In fact, in my own
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