Page 2428 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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Action initiated by the Alliance Government to corporatise ACTEW and forestry operations should be reactivated and other functions such as some elements of ACTION should be assessed for corporatisation. This Follett Labor Government should have no qualms on this subject. They should simply observe the performance of their big brothers over the lake as a guide to action. The Government must undertake an urgent, wide-ranging review of the public sector to identify functions that could be handled better and at less cost to the public purse through adopting these strategies. The organisational arrangements for those functions retained in the public sector must be restructured to ensure maximum effectiveness and efficiency in service delivery, concurrently with the review and reorganisation of the public sector.
While that is going on, the private sector must be stimulated and encouraged to diversify. The Government must review the tax burden on business, with the aim of reducing the current level of taxes that impact with negative effects on productivity and investment. Taxes such as land tax, payroll tax and financial institutions duty discourage and depress investment and productivity. Government programs of compulsory training levies and superannuation guarantees and such activities as occupational health and safety programs all discriminate against and provide disincentives to business growth. The Government must also review fees and charges and regulations that impact on business and economic activity. The time taken to process business applications, inspections and licences must be reduced, and impediments to business initiatives must be removed. It should be determined whether many of these processes are needed at all, whether they can be dispensed with, and whether they can be treated in a different, less obtrusive way.
The Government must consider strategies by which savings from reductions in the size and activities of the public sector can be used to stimulate and motivate the private sector. The private sector, not the public sector, will be the provider of jobs and the generator of government revenues in the ACT in the future. Savings could offset tax reductions; employment programs could be funded from retained taxes. Whatever the arrangements, the net effect must be to transfer activity from the public sector to the private sector and to reduce the costs of government. The Government must divest itself of dead assets or underused resources, in whatever form, and turn the proceeds to productive use. As an example, capital assets not fully used in the public interest - dare I suggest even school properties - must be realised.
I have been critical yet, I hope, constructive in my comments. I do not want to let the opportunity pass without giving credit where it is due. The Government has presided over a surplus, albeit small, in 1991-92. It has brought down a budget for 1992-93 that provides some sectors of the economy with support and encourages some hope for another year without significant deficits, if it can manage to achieve its targets. However, sadly for the ACT, there is cold comfort in the knowledge that we are all in the same boat, becalmed in a deep fog without a paddle. We know, to our regret, that soon - maybe not this year, but soon - we will be woken from our torpor to the reality of a day that is harsh and unforgiving of our indolent past. We need a vision for our future that we can put our faith in, one that we can direct our energies to. I put the Government on notice that, if they fail to provide this, my Liberal colleagues and I will. The community deserves better.
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