Page 1184 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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In summary, contrary to the desire of Labor that it be otherwise, the 1990-91 recurrent budget is still expected to be balanced. Setbacks in projects included in the capital budget allow us to put in hand some urgent works and to accelerate others to provide some short-term stimulus to small business and employment. The Government continues to require tight management control over the budget and to administer the budget with the original budgetary objectives in mind. Loose, uninformed gossip about budget blow-outs is not based on fact. Full year performance at the total budget level will demonstrate that this is nothing but a straw grasped by the Opposition in a desperate attempt to find something on which it can attack the Government.
Mr Speaker, 1991-92 will be influenced by a number of factors, including the report of the Commonwealth Grants Commission on financing the ACT, consequent negotiations with the Commonwealth, and decisions at the 1991 Premiers Conference and Loan Council meeting. The determinants of our 1991-92 budget, therefore, are not yet fully known. Initiatives being taken both by the Alliance Government and by the Commonwealth can be beneficial to the ACT, both in the shorter term and in the longer term. This Government recognises that Australia cannot expect an immediate turn-round in our current economic fortunes. International markets, the depth of domestic recession, and the plight of the rural sector continue to inhibit growth. Earlier forecasts that an improvement cannot be expected until the latter half of this year remain unchanged. All of these factors will be taken into account in the lead-up to the 1991-92 budget. I assure members that this Government will build on the responsible approach adopted since we took office in December 1989. We will deliver our second balanced budget in August and, again contrary to speculation, strictly on schedule as determined at the beginning of the budget cycle last year.
Again, to talk of an early budget is nothing but a fiction driven by an Opposition desperately searching for something to pin their dying hopes on. In the meantime, during the remaining months of this current budgetary year, we are taking all possible steps to foster small business and employment generally. I present the following paper:
Budget - From strength to strength - Ministerial statement, 21 March 1991.
I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
Debate (on motion by Ms Follett) adjourned.
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