Page 2429 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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Madam Speaker, before I sit down, I would like to note the presence in the chamber of Senator Ian Macdonald, a senator from Queensland and shadow Minister for local government and the ACT. Through you, I would like to welcome him to our chamber.
MADAM SPEAKER: Welcome, Senator.
MR MOORE (3.23): Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to comment on the Appropriation Bill. In looking at this budget, I think it is important to note that what we see originally is a careful, responsible, balanced budget. In 1989, Labor had no numbers to guarantee their budget - you will recall that, out of 17, they had five members - and they presented a careful, responsible, balanced budget. In 1990, the Alliance, led by Trevor Kaine, did have the numbers, and they also presented a responsible, careful, balanced budget. In 1991, again with no guarantee of the numbers, Labor provided a careful, responsible, balanced budget.
This year, as far as this Bill goes, Labor had the numbers absolutely guaranteed, no question whatsoever, and they delivered a careful, responsible, balanced budget. What consecutive governments have done on each of those occasions is to take the 1988 bureaucrats' budget and fiddle with the edges. We heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about nip and tuck. What is different about this year is that this Labor Government and this Chief Minister had the opportunity to do something different, to put their mark on a budget, to deliver something that reflected their strategy. Madam Speaker, this is the budget of opportunity lost.
There is nothing particularly wrong with the budget, except that it is a short-term budget that lacks any long-term strategy. That is to be expected, of course, because there is no long-term strategy coming from the Government. Perhaps after Ms Szuty's motion, which was passed by the Assembly, we will start to see the development of a strategy. Next year we may see a better budget and not have this same opportunity lost. The opportunity was there to have a significant impact on micro-economic reform in this budget. Instead, what we have is a careful, responsible and balanced budget. It does do those things; there is no question about it. But what it does not do is put the mark of the Government on this financial situation.
Trevor Kaine offered a series of alternatives in his speech on the budget, and I imagine that those alternatives would be entirely inappropriate for this Government because they are conservative in their character. I can understand why Rosemary Follett would not go along those lines. But I would have expected something quite different, because in its nature this budget is conservative. It is conservative in the sense that it does not seek to make very many changes.
The other thing about this budget, as I go through it piece by piece, is that we need to look at what it was intended to do, and that is to provide jobs. Speaking on previous budgets, I have suggested that it would be appropriate to take money from the capital budget and transfer it to the recurrent budget. In this budget the Government has done just the opposite, and in a time of deep recession I agree with it. I accept that there is a difference in the economic background which required a move of that nature because this is supposedly a budget of jobs. There are some real jobs created by this budget; there is no question about that. But there is a certain lack of openness about those jobs.
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