Page 3079 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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This takes me back to one of the recommendations, in paragraph 3.10 regarding the use of the ACT Transitional Funding Trust Fund Account. Once again we have a case of a government making a decision based on short-term expediency, or for political purposes, rather than taking the long-term view in the interests of the future residents of the ACT. As we all know, the transitional fund was established by the Federal Treasury to retain those funds for expenditure on programs which would reduce the $87m recurrent spending overrun left to us by a Federal Labor Government that did a bit of pork-barrelling in the lead-up to self-government.
It increased, rather than reduced, the cost overrun in recurrent expenditure clearly identified by the latest Grants Commission inquiry. I think it went up to a $117m overrun, and in the year just prior to self-government it came down to $87m. That was a shameful waste of public moneys by that Federal Government and it left a most unfortunate legacy for the ACT community. Mr Speaker, sometimes, as we all know, it is necessary to spend money to save money, believe it or not. In fact, in areas of capital works and maintenance, that is one of the most important factors.
Let me now turn, Mr Speaker, to a comment in relation to the capital works expenditure raised by the Government. (Extension of time granted) I will be brief. On page 8 of the budget strategy statement Ms Follett says:
Accordingly, we have already decided to avoid such borrowings in 1991-92 by using part of the Commonwealth's special assistance funding for capital budget purposes. In addition we have reviewed the previous Government's capital works program so that borrowings can be minimised, and hopefully avoided altogether, in constructing future budgets.
I think I have said it before; but, once again, that is Alice in Wonderland stuff. That, quite frankly, is really not on in these days of the need to provide infrastructure for a developing community. It was unfortunate that Ms Follett, in her statement, chose not to make any comment on the capital forward estimates in the forward estimates report produced in December 1990 by the Alliance Government, which gave information on the estimates from 1991-1992 through to 1993-94. In that we did see a progressive reduction in the amount of borrowings, from $44.2m in 1990-91 right down to $32m in 1993-94.
So, in fact, the previous Government was adopting an approach to slowly reduce capital works. In these times when we find unemployment, brought about by a Federal Labor Government, at 10 per cent and youth unemployment in excess of 20 per cent, and these sorts of problems, it is probably more appropriate that a government like the ACT Government, particularly when only $5m was allocated for capital works
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