Page 1304 - Week 05 - Thursday, 25 June 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
more hard-nosed than the relationship between the Federal Government and the States. This being the case, the importance of informing the ACT community of the implications of this in budgetary terms cannot be emphasised too strongly. Hand in hand with this goes a need to listen to the advice proffered by the community, accepting the community's priorities and concerns as guidance for budgetary emphasis. The centrepiece of the budget strategy is community consultation. However, the emphasis needs to be moved from one of what we can do with our resources to an initial question of what we want and, then, how we fund it. Finally, the Government is to be encouraged to put continuing emphasis on micro-economic reform, along with a commitment to new innovative programs, services and initiatives.
MR DE DOMENICO (3.31): Madam Speaker, I rise briefly to talk about the budget strategy statement. As Ms Follett said, the budget strategy statement was the Labor Party's agenda for the next three years. Obviously, the strategy was designed to enable the Government to implement its agenda. It is a pity that a lot of things set out in that agenda were not brought up before the election. In particular, I refer to the situation where Ms Follett now realises, quite correctly, that any areas that are not being actively used for the benefit of the ACT ought to be looked at for further redevelopment. We applaud Ms Follett for finally coming to that realisation. The statement said very little about the long-term creation of employment in the private sector, save that it made a lot of those motherhood statements that everyone in this community makes from time to time.
We note that the deficit is now somewhere around $73m, and in fact my question this afternoon to Ms Follett commented on the reaction of the Canberra Business Council. Might I say once again that the policy realities of both Commonwealth funding and appropriate State-like expenditures do require the Government to seek a reduction of at least 10 per cent in its overall budget expenditure, and a saving of at least $100m must be achieved within the next two years. In fact, if that does not happen, we believe that the budget gap might get to $200m. The Opposition found the budget strategy to be generally disappointing in this regard, as it failed to make many of the difficult decisions which will be needed to ensure that Canberra's future economic prosperity is achieved. The other thing I need to say is that the statement did not mention the commitment the Labor Party has given from time to time to bringing the development of land back into government hands. One might now ask whether the Government has changed its mind. Where would it find the $60m or $70m it would require for that to happen?
Perhaps my greatest criticism of the budget strategy is that, in my opinion, it lacks vision. We did not hear anything about the possibility of a private hospital on Lake Ginninderra. We did not hear anything about the redevelopment of Acton Peninsula. We did not hear anything about the development of West Belconnen, which I think is very important. We heard this morning that there had been negotiations about the Kingston foreshore land. The budget strategy lacked any news about whether the industrial relations system would be overhauled. What will happen now that we are allowed to have our own public service? There was no mention of things that are perhaps too visionary, such as the Commonwealth Games, light rail, the urban village, high technology in education, and even a high altitude training establishment in Corin Forest.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .