Page 1024 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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areas of Canberra get the services and facilities available to the other residents of the ACT. Whilst the forward estimates provide for delivery of services, we will be looking at doing things more effectively and more efficiently. Reducing overhead costs is obviously one way of ensuring that as much of available funding as possible is directed towards service delivery. My department will continue to look at ways of reducing non-essential overhead costs. In order to meet its challenges and new functions more efficiently, the Department of Urban Services has recently completed a major organisational restructure. The main aims are for the department to be better placed to provide services to the community and to meet emerging needs and to ensure that it can provide services and advice to government.
Ten-year responsibilities for the department include the commercialisation of a range of internal services, which will be subject to the competitive user pays discipline of the provision of common services to government agencies in an environment which requires minimising of such costs; the development of the corporatisation process; and the establishment of Territory owned corporations. To that end, as people are aware, we have already established some Territory owned corporations and there are others in the pipeline. To my mind, the most important of those measures will be the corporatisation of ACTEW which will take place from 1 July of this year.
As noted in the recent Estimates Committee report, from next financial year departmental rental costs will be attributed to individual programs to ensure that the full cost of program delivery is clearly reflected in the budget. The department will continue to identify and attribute other such costs in a similar way. These are just some of the areas in which my department has been active and which are reflected in the forward estimates as examined by the committee.
One interesting point that Ms Follett made in her address should not be allowed to go unremarked on. Although she was carping at this Government about our performance in terms of many things which are beyond our control, she said - and I will paraphrase her - that, given the incompetence of the Alliance Government, somehow this year's budget appears to be on track and the estimates report seems to give a balanced budget. She was, of course, quite amazed. Coming from Ms Follett, I regard that as a very good compliment on the financial management of this Government and its officers.
Looking back at the fairy days of the Labor Government that we had here in 1989, no-one would ever wish to have that situation repeated. Indeed, the question posed by Mr Humphries was: What would happen if the ACT was given another dose of Follett economics or another dose of a Labor government? Of course, what we would have in that situation is another dose of the Trotsky Left that Mr
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