Page 2451 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
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When I first read the budget speech that the Chief Minister delivered the other day I thought to myself, "This is an election budget. This is a budget full of goodies and give-aways designed to win an election. The only trouble is that the election is not due for two-and-a-half years. Why on earth is this coming out at this time?". I think the Chief Minister summed up the essential element of this budget when she said on ABC radio yesterday morning, "I do not think we have made big sacrifices in this budget". That, I think Madam Speaker, sums it up in a few words. We have not made any big sacrifices in this budget, but the question we have to ask ourselves is this: Should we have made some big sacrifices in this budget?
I am not a masochist. I do not believe in fiscal restraint because it is character building. But I do think that we should be making every budget in the early half of the 1990s an absolute winner in terms of delivering to the people of the ACT a stronger and more secure financial future. Every budget must build for that future. Every budget has to leave the Territory financially stronger than it found it. Madam Speaker, I have to say that I do not think this budget does. As Mr Kaine has pointed out, this budget makes no provisions for reductions in Commonwealth support, except for this financial year. Let us consider what that means in terms of the long-term future. The total size of our problem is something like $120m-odd. We are facing a reduction in only four years of $120m-odd in our Commonwealth grants. We simply cannot ignore that problem, but this Government effectively has. The only way to face up to that problem, frankly, is to make a fundamental restructuring of the way in which services are delivered in the ACT.
The point is that $120m is about 10 per cent of our total ACT budget. You cannot get around that problem by nipping and tucking. You have to make fundamental changes to the way in which you deliver services and the efficiency with which you deliver those services. The answer has to be to reduce costs, in particular, to trim the size of the ACT Government public sector, and, of course, most importantly, to reduce waste. Madam Speaker, now is the time to act; not when the problem becomes more severe, but now. The election is not for two-and-a-half years. The window of opportunity is open right now. Now is the time to make those important structural changes. Now is the time to make changes in the nature of service delivery in the ACT which would persist into the future. I have to ask, Madam Speaker: What will be left of this budget at the end of this financial year, on 30 June 1993? The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing. This budget will have died and gone to meet its maker - if it has not already done so - and will have delivered no long-term benefits to the people of the ACT. That, Madam Speaker, troubles me greatly.
Ms Follett has made a great virtue of having balanced her budget. She has recited this like a sort of mantra, "Yes, I have balanced the budget, I have balanced the budget, I have balanced the budget". But, Madam Speaker, although that is something of an achievement, frankly, balancing the budget was not the major challenge which the ACT faced in this financial year. The major challenge we have had to face is creating an environment for positive change to build a secure future for this Territory, and to make the fundamental changes which would allow the ACT not to have to make serious and deep cuts to services in future years.
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