Page 1300 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
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LAND (PLANNING AND ENVIRONMENT) ACT LEASES
Papers
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning): Madam Speaker, for the information of members I present the following papers, together with explanatory statements:
Land (Planning and Environment) Act - Leases granted pursuant to section 161, together with explanatory statements -
Ngunawal, section 1, block 1.
Nicholls, section 1, block 3.
BUDGET STRATEGY 1992-93
Ministerial Statement
Debate resumed from 18 June 1992, on motion by Ms Follett:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MRS CARNELL (3.16): I would like to make some comments on some parts of the budget strategy statement. Ms Follett has announced an acceleration of the planned capital works program. This will generate employment for about 300 people in the ACT. It would be interesting to know how many of these people will be women and how many will be people aged between 15 and 19 - the areas of great concern in unemployment in the ACT. The result of the recent Premiers Conference was a 6.5 per cent decrease in Commonwealth general purpose funding for the ACT. The strategy statement put forward by Ms Follett did not, by any stretch of the imagination, address how the Government will balance this 6.5 per cent cut against the apparent commitment to maintain services. A couple of nights ago we began to see the Government's real budget strategy emerge. Hikes in taxes and charges amounting to $19m were announced. This still leaves a huge shortfall of over $50m to cover.
Health spending represents about 25 per cent of the ACT budget. I can only assume that, in contrast to the hollow statement of the budget strategy that services will be maintained, there will in fact be a cut to the health budget. Such a cut would have to be doubly severe. A cut of 5 per cent in real terms was announced last time around, yet we are actually spending more than in the previous year - 2 per cent the last time we looked. If this is the best we can manage, then any cut in the health budget will have to be even more draconian in order to make it stick this time. Ms Follett says that the way the Commonwealth treated the ACT this year is "probably no worse than we will face in the next few years". Such a statement highlights the real need for long-term planning in the health environment. The 6.5 per cent cut in Commonwealth funding is compounded by the sorts of developments which Ms Follett noted - rather too obliquely, I might add - in her speech.
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