Page 3548 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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fewer job opportunities in both the public sector and the private sector. This is possibly the cruelest hoax of them all, because it falsely raises the hopes of our young people.
When all of my comments during this review of the budget are considered, it can only be concluded that the budget does not satisfy the criterion of social justice - the basis that Ms Follett claims for it. There is no social justice in the arbitrary transfer of funding from the private schools sector to the public schools sector. There is no social justice in withholding minimal support and encouragement from our sorely-pressed small business in the private sector. There is no social justice in penalising the ageing, the widowed, the prudent who have tried to protect themselves from the deprivations of inflation by investing in a small way in real estate.
There is no social justice in treating the community as an electioneering tool, by addressing only the short-term problems as a matter of expediency and ignoring the potentially disastrous consequences of this self-seeking activity which will inevitably fall on the community in the future - indeed, in the immediate future. There is no social justice in creating false hopes among our youth in their search for jobs. The Canberra Times got it right when it said:
... no-one could seriously expect that the Budget will succeed, or is even intended to succeed, in carrying the ACT through to June next year. It is simply designed to carry the Government through to an election without things going ... awry in the meantime. Then it will be up to the party in power to pick up the mess ... the mess is likely to be a very serious one - probably indicating an up-end Budget shortfall of at least $20 million.
My sincere hope is that a blow-out as low as $20m just might eventuate. As I said, the Canberra Times got it right, and so did the senior ACT public servant, quoted by Ian Davis, get it right - that the budget was "all about keeping all the balls in the air - and hoping they don't fall before February".
Mr Acting Speaker, the Labor Party avoided their responsibility to the community in their 1989 budget. They have done it again in their 1991 budget. I am sure that the community in general has seen that, just as clearly as have the Canberra Times reporters and editorial staff.
The incompetence, or the naked self-interest, of this Labor Government will not go unremarked by the electorate. The more responsible members of the community and of this Assembly can only live in hope that February will see a return to sanity and responsibility in government, and that the damage done by this Government in so short a time in office will be susceptible to correction without too much pain.
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