Page 2426 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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Indeed, the unforeseen and uncontrolled revenue benefits that rescued the Government from a deficit last year have also been built into the budget base this year. Consequently, there is a question hanging over the achievability of the receipts for 1992-93. Last year there were many revenue items that actually underachieved. Land tax, stamp duty on leases, life insurance premiums, motor vehicle registrations, franchise fees on X-rated videos, financial institutions duties, and parking and traffic fines were all below budget expectations. Why would we expect that they will reach yet higher levels of achievement this year? The recession remains in place, business activity is low generally, and these figures are extremely fragile. I believe that the assumptions made in framing this budget are extremely fragile. They depend on growth in the economy, continuing recovery in consumer confidence, costs in the public sector remaining within estimates, and receipts achieving estimated levels. These are all variables in which only a very naive, or perhaps courageous, Minister, in the terms of "Yes, Minister", would place great confidence.
The budget fails to stimulate or provide any incentives whatsoever for the ACT economy. It fails to redress our unemployment crisis. Essentially, the Government has responded to unemployment not with jobs but with training schemes and short-term work experience programs. It has responded to the need for economic stimulation with schemes to plan for activity at some time in the future. The estimates of job growth in the budget are also optimistic. The 2,000 jobs estimated to flow from the Commonwealth construction program, specifically York Park, will occur in the ACT, but most will not be available this year; neither will there be any guarantee that the jobs will result in 2,000 - or any - fewer faces on our unemployment queues. Some of those jobs will go to the existing employees of successful contractors and immigrant unemployed workers will take some of the remaining jobs. Of those jobs available to our local unemployed, many may not be suitable for the skill levels of our young and long-term adult male unemployed. I submit that there is not much joy for our unemployed in that project.
Of the other jobs the Treasurer spoke about, many are training jobs, not real jobs that result in long-term employment. For example, the 30 young people to be employed under the Government's special youth employment initiative will have jobs for only six months. What happens at the end of the six months? They go back on the unemployment queue. The Government claims that some 500 jobs will be created through their public works program. The realities of today's economic circumstances may well prove this claim to be illusory as contractors competing for this work contain their operating costs to a minimum, in many cases bidding merely to keep their businesses alive and leaving no capacity for additional employees. They, like the Government, are obliged to do more with less, hence those additional jobs may not materialise.
Support for the private sector is almost non-existent in this budget. The Government offers only the casino, the freight handling facility, and development of projects with Optus and Telecom as indicators of the budget's contribution to the private sector. The casino, as we all know, has been in development for several years and cannot be claimed entirely by this Government as its own initiative, although it may generate jobs this year. The freight facility will be welcomed, but it is certainly a long-term project. It is a long time into the future, and we do not see any jobs likely to emerge this year.
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