Page 2414 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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The Government recognises the community's call for a leaner bureaucracy and believes it can respond without affecting the delivery of direct services to the public ...
In other words, we can reduce the size of the public sector in the ACT, the ACT's own public sector. I want to remind the Assembly, Mr Speaker, that the Follett Opposition, as it then was, consistently and repeatedly associated reductions in the size of the public sector, the ACT's public sector, with reductions in the level of services. Any attempt made by the Alliance Government to reduce the number of public servants was seen as a reduction in the quality of services. Yet now Ms Follett says that the community is calling for a leaner bureaucracy and that some cuts in public service numbers are acceptable. All I can say is that once again we have seen doubletalk on a quite remarkable scale.
Mr Speaker, the cuts that we all know must be achieved in the size of the ACT public sector will have to be achieved, and they will not be achieved by anything outlined in this document. Random cuts, such as those to consultancy funds, to travel expenditure or to vehicle spending, are no way to produce a reasonably reduced public sector. There clearly needs to be a very clear, unambiguous, direct and forthright strategy to deal with this question, and it needs to be stated quite quickly because there is, unfortunately, little time in which the ACT can deal with these complex and long-term problems. There is no evidence of it here. Mr Jensen spoke about a five-year plan, and that is one solution to the problem. We have not seen anything in specific terms from the Government and I hope that that is rectified quite quickly.
I am disappointed, Mr Speaker, that the Stromlo High School accelerated closure decision has not been proceeded with. The Government appears to have set its face hard against the Alliance Government's school plans. They find it quite incomprehensible that there could actually be some people of goodwill out in the community who actually support our proposals for a particular school closure. And that is so in the case of Stromlo High; there are people out there who actually support our plan.
Now, those people are being told, for ideological reasons, "We are not going to support you; we are going to put to one side your call for government assistance to proceed with that closure plan, and therefore we are going to leave you in need of those restructuring funds necessary to get that particular project off the ground". It will save money, of course. Proceeding with the accelerated closure of the Holder campus of Stromlo High will certainly produce recurrent savings. It would produce recurrent savings, Mr Speaker; there is no doubt whatsoever of that. The people of Stromlo know it and I think that those opposite should know it as well.
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