Page 188 - Week 01 - Thursday, 15 February 1990
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deludes himself or herself by saying that we can face this problem without it frankly ought not to be sitting in front of the people of the Territory expecting their vote at the next election.
The terms of the establishment of the Priorities Review Board deserve careful examination by the people opposite. They will see that it is a well-defined task that they have before them. They should think twice before they criticise the report that emerges from that process. They will see much benefit for the people of Canberra from the report, and I for one will be waiting for that with some anticipation.
I think that we ought to analyse the various options available to a government to decide whether or not this course of action could be bettered. I cannot think of a way in which it could. It seems to me that there are other ways in which you could do it, but they would all be inferior to the way that the Government has chosen. I commend this course of action to the house. I believe that we should endorse this process. We should allow the members of the board to proceed with their business in a calm fashion. We should not politicise the process of their deliberations; we should not pre-empt their recommendations, and at the end of that process I believe the ACT will have been well served.
MR MOORE (11.32): Mr Speaker, I will start by quoting from Mr Kaine's speech:
I do not pretend that this will be an easy task and I am aware that hard decisions will be required if we are to bring responsible fiscal management to the Australian Capital Territory.
I state categorically that I admire Mr Kaine's courage in establishing the Priorities Review Board, to which I will refer in future as the razor gang because that is exactly what it is going to be. It is clear that the financial management of the ACT will require some very hard decisions.
Mr Humphries in his speech said that he particularly supports the board and its structure. I support the board and I support the concept of identifying where cuts can be made throughout the ACT Government's spending and budget areas. However, I have been greatly disillusioned by the structure of the board. It is made up of businessmen. I have no difficulty with the particular businessmen and the choice of those business people. They are obviously competent in their areas. But the nature of the board is such that its priorities will be very different from those of the vast majority of Canberrans.
The Canberra Times editorial of Wednesday, 14 February states:
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