Page 2332 - Week 08 - Friday, 21 June 1991
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problem is that the ACT's revenue base is small and increased taxes and charges can meet only some of the shortfall. Hardship will be caused to small business and the community if large increases are made, particularly as we are in the depths of the recession. Nevertheless, the Government should pursue some increases in framing the budget, providing the impact is equitable and care is taken to protect the disadvantaged in our community.
Rather than just relying on traditional revenue sources, the ACT Government should be creating new ones. One good example is my initiative, as Attorney, for limited partnerships, for which Dr Terence Dwyer is developing proposals. Dr Dwyer will complete them in early August. As well as providing a simpler option for running businesses, it will generate registration fees for the ACT Government. I trust that the present Attorney will bring forward that report immediately it is presented, given the urgency of the situation regarding small business and investment concerns in this Territory.
The final option is for further expenditure reductions. As I have already said, we need to maintain and even improve services in the ACT to the greatest extent possible. That means that the ACT Government will have to tackle the enormous overheads in the bureaucracy. I am very critical of our failure to tackle and look for top structure reforms in the ACT Government Service. At a time when services are being cut back, the ACT Government remains top heavy with SES positions, with the majority congregating in the Chief Minister's Department. Their relative opulence contrasts with the threadbare services to those with disabilities. These senior advisers press on us a steady diet of economic rationalism, often without direct care for the dire social consequences that it will cause. I again reiterate the need for an economic planning council to provide more balanced economic advice to the Government.
The ACT Government Service still remains a copy of a Commonwealth department and in many areas has failed to move with the times. It still has a bureaucratic hierarchy for which a good characterisation is "people hired to read reports which others of them had been hired to write". The emphasis now in successful organisations is to switch the resources to the front-line staff, the people who do the real work and deliver the services. The organisation is turned around in that manner to work for their customers.
What this means is cutting out most of the layers of middle management and supervisors and devolving responsibility and authority to the working staff. A major role of management becomes the support and development of staff to improve the effectiveness of their service delivery and their productivity. The traditional paper warfare games of managers can no longer be tolerated or afforded. One need only refer to the Auditor-General's reports in that regard and the current situation of the Housing Trust, where real reform is about to be introduced.
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