Page 3055 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 11 September 1990
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Notice of changes will be given as soon as possible, in time for parents and students to make their travel arrangements when the next school year begins.
Last year the Estimates Committee recommended that a review take place on whether it would be more appropriate for a direct subsidy to be paid to ACTION for school bus transport, rather than a transfer through the Department of Education. The Government has examined this issue and decided that, for accountability purposes, the payment should be made directly to ACTION. The social welfare subsidy will also be transferred to ACTION, and these payments will in the future be identified as community service obligations.
In summary, in all, recurrent expenditure reductions of $14.9m have been projected for 1990-91, with a 1991-92 impact of $24.9m, and $27.5m in 1992-93. And these figures do not include the recurrent savings from the redevelopment of hospital services. All this makes a solid contribution to redressing the overfunding problem passed on to us by the Commonwealth.
The Budget papers contain a wealth of information on the ACT's financial position, and I commend them to members and the public as a means of gaining an informed understanding of our overall financial position.
We have also undertaken some restructuring for longer term savings. Restructuring initiatives have been high in the Government's priorities for inclusion in this Budget. The Government has approved a number of projects which will achieve savings in the longer term. The sum of $20m has been allocated in the 1990-91 recurrent budget for this purpose, as well as $8.6m from the capital budget and $2.9m remaining from the funds released by the Commonwealth last year from the transitional fund. Full year savings and additional revenue resulting from these expenditures will be $12.4m. So, for an expenditure of $30m this year, we get continuing annual savings in excess of $12m a year.
I have written to the Prime Minister seeking his agreement to release $18.6m from the Transitional Funding Trust Account this year. Of this amount, $10m is sought to cover part of the capital requirements for the hospitals redevelopment project. The Commonwealth refused to assist us to rebuild the hospital system as part of the establishment of self-government. I trust it will recognise the pivotal nature of the hospital restructuring task in overcoming the ACT's significant overexpenditure on health services.
The request for restructuring funds includes capacity needed to fund redundancy packages. Tasmania obtained a $40m special grant from the Commonwealth for public sector restructuring in 1989-90, and I look forward to Commonwealth recognition of a similar need in the ACT. Seven million dollars has been allocated to address the
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