Page 3555 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 September 1991
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yet to know about a whole range of elections to be made under the public sector superannuation scheme and expected levels of redundancy and retirement. We note that there is no significant allocation for redundancy payments in the current budget. This suggests that natural attrition and a slow move towards more acceptable staffing levels is the Government's preference.
On the methodology side, members may have seen an article in the Financial Review on 16 September last, by Prudence Anderson, in which she reviews a new book Managing State Finance by the New South Wales Treasury's recently retired deputy secretary, Mr Don Nicholls. The book reveals the myth of allegedly balanced budgets and/or deficit budgets. The learned author believes that governments should extend their accrual accounting methods in line with the private sector practice of recording assets and liabilities.
The ACT budget has significant areas where user charges are retained by agencies and not paid into the Consolidated Fund, and significant areas where group support services are not booked up to the cash-flow area they relate to. In other words, what is the profit and loss situation, for example, of having an Economic Development Division, and what carry forward is there in the work they do in relation to specific identified economic enterprises of the Government which cost money or incur debts? On Tuesday we asked the Chief Minister the size of the Territory's public service. It is Thursday now, and we still do not know. We could not have highly accurate predictive budgeting on that basis.
On the subject of Territory investments, the Rally wishes to congratulate the ACT Treasury for its move to more commercially based investment activity on the market. We believe that the returns are appropriate and we believe that they reflect the high level of competence of those public officials involved.
Mr Acting Speaker, the Housing Trust has borrowed $6m to expand housing this year. Much was made of that when Mr Kaine made the point that really there were no incentives for the private sector in the budget. The borrowings are not within the housing fund as such, but have been brought across from the Territory account. One should question the wisdom of expanding new construction within the Housing Trust vote at a time when the spot market presents a swifter and cheaper form of meeting the stock acquisition strategy. Up to the time I left government, there was a firm view in the trust that the spot market was the more appropriate place to find cottage dwellings, except for urban consolidation situations, aged persons units and other specialist requirements needed to balance stock in newer suburbs.
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