Page 3549 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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Ms Follett has demonstrated yet again that she simply does not understand anything about economic and financial management. She made her lack of understanding patently obvious right at the beginning when, during the debate at the Press Club in 1989, she asserted that there was a surplus on the ACT Budget and that I was wrong. That surplus, of course, turned into the $135m shortfall identified, for that year, by the Grants Commission. She was short on understanding and competence then; she remains so today.
The ACT Government Service staffing numbers fiasco is indicative of this entire budget - the numbers are rubbery. But you cannot blame professional public servants for doing their jobs; you must blame the perpetrator - the Treasurer. Just as the Canberra Times and other critics have got it right, the Treasurer has got it wrong - again.
MR COLLAERY (3.31): Mr Acting Speaker, the Follett budget is a mutation of the Alliance budget minus social justice. It is sterile and it is patronising. It is a budget framed for an election slogan, namely, "Labor Balances", rather than a budget framed for the people. It is a shallow document devoid of the innovations introduced by the Alliance budget. Whilst it is true that the budget affirms just a few of our social justice initiatives, they have been either put on drip feed or put off. Shame on a Labor Party for that.
The Rally said on 6 June this year in this house that Ms Follett would be largely constrained by the budget preparations made by the Alliance. We warned her against ideological tinkering with the budget. The Rally also informed her of some of the lessons we had learned over 19 months in government. Those warnings have been ignored. We see the ideological Left hand all through this budget.
The claim by Ms Follett that social justice is "the key to the budget" is a hollow promise; it is a cruel hoax. When she took government she took over a long list of potential initiatives. Some of them, like the proposed capital projects - - -
Mr Connolly: The $6m wish list.
MR COLLAERY: Just listen to this. Some of them, like the proposed capital projects for the deinstitutionalisation of Bruce Hostel, the structured day care program for a select group of young people, the outfitting of a disability services group home, and major capital assistance grants in a program totalling $1.6m, have gone. They have gone, Mr Acting Speaker, because Ms Follett has transferred the $3.5m surplus from the Community Development Fund to the municipal budget. She has done this rather than borrow an appropriate sum, as is the accepted, orthodox and prudent practice in all municipal budgets.
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