Page 2423 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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APPROPRIATION BILL 1992-93
Debate resumed from 15 September 1992, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.00): Madam Speaker, I have pondered at some length in the last 48 hours on the question of what I should say about this 1992-93 budget. I find it very difficult to comment on a budget that was dead on arrival.
Ms Follett: I think we have heard that before.
MR KAINE: No, that one is original. It is difficult to make a profound commentary on the Follett budget because it is so thin in content and one that must disappoint almost everyone in the Territory. It is a do-nothing budget that fails to set in place any major initiatives but seeks only to maintain the status quo. It is, unfortunately, a budget reflective of the pattern set by earlier Labor government budgets brought down in this Territory since 1989. It is the principal reason why we will find ourselves facing increasingly difficult times in the very near future, with reducing capacity to take flexible action as the timescale for decisive budgetary action becomes increasingly compressed.
I have had reason before to describe Follett budgets as nip and tuck budgets. I am sure Ms Follett will remember the words.
Ms Follett: They were my words.
MR KAINE: They were your words, indeed. They display no great initiative but rely on balancing the recurrent budget by nipping little bits of money from one program and tucking them into others. This is essentially a directionless way of budgeting. In good times it may be that such undirected activity does not do much harm because it at least maintains the existing level of inactivity, but with a few added bits of embroidery. Unfortunately, we are at a time when bold leadership is required, and this Government is not providing it. The nip and tuck approach simply will not suffice.
The budget fails abysmally to address the major problems of the Territory. The essential restructuring that the ACT needs to meet future demands and which the Alliance Government began has been abandoned by Labor. The reductions in Commonwealth funding that we know will occur each year have not been addressed and no new direction is established. Through continuing Labor decisions, we are running down our reserves to meet consecutive budget gaps. Last year alone, $53m in one-off transitional payments from the Commonwealth, as well as a further $25m worth of reserves established by the Alliance Government, were spent to overcome that year's budget gap. Those funds cannot be replaced and their loss will cost the ACT dearly in the future.
This year the Follett Government is borrowing prudently $23m, and that is fine. At the same time, it is using an additional $21m from Consolidated Fund reserves to assist in producing yet another balanced recurrent budget and to maintain a reasonable level of capital expenditures. Meanwhile, the Government gives the impression that the mandatory adjustment to reduced Commonwealth funding is a fiction, because they are doing nothing about it. We simply cannot continue to
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