Page 3471 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 25 November 1992
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Mr Moore: Who would take over?
MR DE DOMENICO: Certainly not you, Mr Moore. You have to enjoy the last three years you have in this place, because it is ta ta after that. Madam Speaker, this budget does not take action against unemployment in any real or meaningful way. It creates temporary jobs and training schemes. It does not attack issues which affect the businesses in the ACT which employ people, issues such as payroll tax, business regulations, the cost of labour, workers compensation, Federal policies like superannuation guarantee levies, industry training levies, penalty rates, leave loadings, unrealistic occupational health and safety legislation, and financial institutions duties. It is costs like these that make it very difficult for business to employ more people. Madam Speaker, action on these areas was non-existent. Real help for the people who employ people was non-existent. Real employment growth will correspondingly be non-existent. We are already seeing the results of the Federal budget in the highest unemployment figures ever recorded, according to the ABS figures.
Madam Speaker, there is no real way of reinventing wheels to do all this. There is only one way to create lasting wealth in Canberra. There is only one way to create lasting jobs in Canberra. That is by rebuilding the business sector. Business and wealth are not dirty words, of course; they are the building blocks of a progressive vital community. In creating wealth and prosperity you automatically create jobs. Welfare should be a safety net. One million people, Madam Speaker, do not need a safety net; they needs jobs. One million unemployed, 15,000 of those in Canberra, say clearly that Labor Party policies, both in the ACT and federally, are failing. In fact Labor has failed the community. We have known that for some time.
Madam Speaker, unless the ACT Government achieves significant economies and increases in efficiency in the next two years the ACT will face a severe budgetary crisis in 1994-95. Yesterday we heard of the ACT Government attempting to cut its costs with the ACTION buses situation. We heard union leaders say, "Oh, listen, the only way for us to get around a table and talk to you is if you give us higher salaries". When the Government's power base depends on protecting vested interests in trade union movements or elsewhere, the probability of making significant economies and increases in efficiency seem remote.
Madam Speaker, the budget did nothing, in our view, towards making the cuts it should have done. What will be made will come too late to save any government, I believe. I mentioned before our financial situation in 1994-95. There is a $73m shortfall, and by 1994 the transitional funding of $80m, or around that figure, will cease. The Government faces, without solutions, the prospect of a $153m gap, and that is only if the current rate stays steady and does not increase.
This year will be remembered as pivotal in the history of the ACT. We go forwards or backwards from here, and this budget, in its lack of vision, direction and strength, puts the ACT behind before even beginning to meet the challenges which lie ahead. We see or we are told about 2 per cent overall cuts, but that lacks the specifics to ever be remotely successful; and many government agencies have been exempted - the Tourism Commission and ACTEW, just to mention two.
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