Page 2470 - Week 09 - Thursday, 17 September 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Kaine looked also, Madam Speaker, at raw figures in both education and health, and he has simply ignored the fact that our population is growing and our school enrolments are growing. We have, in fact, provided funding for that growth. It is an entirely reasonable thing to do. Madam Speaker, we have set significant expenditure reductions in place, and they are realistic reductions; they are achievable reductions. In the health area, Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine's reference to the business rules seems to suggest that we should have no flexibility to cope with changes that are beyond the Government's control. I do not know what he intends us to do, Madam Speaker - stack the patients in the car park perhaps. We will not do that. I can only assume, Madam Speaker, that he would cut essential services to pay for wage increases or to compensate for decreased revenue from the private patients.
I turn now to Mr Kaine's comments on revenue. I would say that the revenue estimates in the budget are realistic and they are based on patterns which emerged last year as well as, of course, Treasury predictions of future trends. There is nothing airy-fairy about them. In some areas, Madam Speaker, revenue items underachieved last year. We have had a recession. This may have escaped members opposite. Some have overachieved, but I doubt whether members opposite could have predicted the enormous increase, for example, in conveyancing activity. I doubt very much that they would have made that prediction, and, indeed, neither did we. There will always be variables; but I am confident that we have estimated as accurately as possible, and the budget is not based in any way on fragile parameters. I stand by the Treasury's expertise in making those estimations, and I would certainly put the Treasury expertise in these matters far above that of the contrary Liberals opposite.
Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine also dismissed the impact of the budget on the creation of jobs in the private sector. I really think that he has done less than justice not just to the budget but to the private sector's ability to respond to some stimulus. I believe that the measures we have put in place are realistic and achievable, and they make use of the means available to us in the best possible way. Mr Kaine, of course, in his contrary fashion, has complained that some measures are short term; for example, training. He does not like training at all because it is short term. On the other hand, and many of the contrary Liberal members made this comment, the freight facility and the international hotel management school are too long term for them. They really just do not know what they want.
Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine has spouted his usual rhetoric about smaller government, about privatisation, about contracting out, and so on. He has also put forward the idea of a wide-ranging review of the public sector. With his experience of the Priorities Review Board under his belt, so to speak, I am amazed that he would dare to suggest a similar exercise. Members will recall that Mr Kaine, in effect, had to distance himself from that report. He paid out well over $300,000 in consultants' fees for that report, and then did not use it and said that he could not use it. How is that for fiscal responsibility? Madam Speaker, Mr Kaine, as I say, has really spouted nothing more than empty rhetoric. Where he did venture what he understood as the facts, he is wrong. I think that is very unfortunate in somebody who does claim to be the alternative Treasurer.
Madam Speaker, I will deal fairly briefly with what other members have said. Mr Moore and Ms Szuty, as usual, said a great deal that is sensible, a great deal that is useful and a great deal that will be pondered upon.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .