Page 2406 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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really what we are talking about. However, I note that there was a stated commitment to preserve the quality and access to public health, education and community services. We will be looking forward to some greater detail as to how the Government proposes to go about that in a tight budgetary situation.
Vision and clear direction for the Territory, Mr Speaker, are the key to any ACT budget or budgetary statement. Unfortunately, Ms Follett's statement failed to address a number of important issues. There was no vision; there were no new ideas, as my colleague Mr Collaery has already said, in that statement. For example, we in the Rally believe that the Government should consider some of the following as initiatives. There should be a plan for restructuring the public service over a five-year period - not just statements such as "We are going to do a little bit of restructuring". Let us have a proper five-year plan for restructuring the public service, not just a few high-sounding statements or words.
The other issue, Mr Speaker, that my colleagues in the Rally have sought a number of times is the formation of an economic planning council to provide independent community advice to the Government, outside the advice already provided by Treasury. We want something new, some input from the community. That is the sort of input that I suggest we should be seeking from the community, rather than airy-fairy statements and requests such as we have seen in some of the media statements by the Chief Minister and Treasurer.
We should also have a defined strategy for the improvement and development of private sector employment and a program for the reduction of payroll tax - this is not the first time that we have raised this issue - and there should be the requirement for the funds forgone by industry to be used for training and development programs for youth. We have seen increasing levels of youth unemployment in our city. As a parent with a teenage child, I am fully aware of the problems associated with lack of work for some of our young people in the ACT at the moment. But it is through initiatives such as these that the ACT can look towards a bright and prosperous future. They are just some simple, basic ideas that should be taken up and considered by this Government.
For example, our public service needs a five-year plan for its restructuring, to include a switch from top level and middle management to service delivery. There is not much point in having a public service of 30,000-odd if the majority of them are at the top levels or in middle management. You have to get them out delivering the service to the community that they are supposed to be serving. There are a large number of small organisational units that should be consolidated into units servicing a specific community of clients, which would allow for major efficiencies and benefits. A streamlining of procedures
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