Page 187 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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Mrs Grassby: No, I just don't like to put people on the breadline - that is the difference - and I know you would be quite happy to do it.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Address your comments through the Chair, please.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mrs Grassby, if you think that trimming the size of the public service and the burden placed on taxpayers is a bad thing, you obviously do not deserve to be in government.
Mrs Grassby: They pay tax, too, you know.
MR HUMPHRIES: Of course they pay tax. If they choose to leave their jobs, then that is their business. The fact is, Mr Speaker, that for the ACT we have an extraordinarily large public service - 17,500 public servants are the servants of the ACT population of only a quarter of a million people. I think in anyone's book that is an extraordinarily large ratio of public servants to citizens. Everybody who has looked at this problem has said that the ACT needs to consider a reduction in the size of its public service.
I make no apologies for supporting that position because I for one intend to keep the promises that I made, with my colleagues, at the last election. Included in those promises were the points that we would not increase the levels of taxation on people of the Territory, that we would not stand by and allow the services available to the people of the ACT deteriorate and that we would bring in a balanced budget when special Federal funding for the ACT is discontinued. Within those frameworks we are able to proceed along the line of finding appropriate economies to make.
It is entirely appropriate in those circumstances to consider a process such as that which the Chief Minister has announced. The Priorities Review Board is an excellently structured body. It consists of people with great expertise in their fields. I am sorry to see Mr Berry denigrate those people by his comments. They are good people who are capable of advising the Government very competently. I am extremely impressed with their qualifications. I think that they will perform a very valuable task for the people of this Territory, and I look forward to reading their report when it is available.
I intend to support this process which I know will be difficult. It will be extremely easy for members opposite to bleat and complain about the hardship which some decisions cause. I have no doubt that there will be hardship; I make no bones about that. We realise that there will be some hardship, but I think that is an appropriate kind of issue to raise now and put fairly and squarely before the people of the Territory. Anybody who
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