Page 1209 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 11 May 1993
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This single fact is one of the most important so far as the budget in 1993-94 is concerned. Over the last four years we have seen three budgets that have failed to take note of the need to reduce expenditure and to expand the economic base of the Territory. I note that the exception was that brought down by the Alliance Government. The fundamental and difficult issues associated with restructuring the way that government does its business have simply not been addressed.
Instead of devising new ideas and strategies, the Follett Government has deluded itself into thinking that the problem could be ignored, and presumably, if ignored long enough, would simply go away. Someone somewhere else would make everything all right. Regrettably and inevitably, however, this state of bliss had to end and a price for procrastination must eventually be paid. The time for payment has arrived, but unfortunately the timing could not be worse. It is a time when more than one in three young people between 15 and 19 are unable to find any work here. It is a time when eight out of each 100 adults are unable to find work. It is a time when less than a half-dozen major businesses have relocated to the ACT over the last couple of years. It is a time when economic growth from capital works projects is being driven from outside the Territory rather than by local decisions. It is a time when a growth in diversity of business in the ACT has simply stalled.
This would be serious enough in a large populous State with a vigorous and varied industrial and commercial life. It is more serious in the ACT, which still depends on the public sector to provide about 48 per cent of available jobs - a public sector, I might add, that is growing steadily smaller; a public sector that is simply not recruiting the young or the unskilled; and a public sector that is shedding middle level, middle-aged men and women to an uncertain future inadequately provided for by superannuation.
Notwithstanding that this is hardly a propitious time for the making of hard decisions, they now have to be made of necessity. The Government can no longer put off the confrontation of these major and fundamental issues. I submit, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that the ACT now has very little remaining potential to make significant adjustments either in its revenue or in its expenditures. On the revenue side, many taxes in the ACT are no longer susceptible to the exercise of great discretion. Our performance in revenue collection is now recognised by the Grants Commission and by the Chief Minister as being close to standard. In any case, in many instances the levels are determined very often by others, by the States, for example, working to ensure that business taxes are uniform.
From our viewpoint it is quite obvious that the level of taxation in New South Wales is of particular importance to us. If ACT taxes exceed those of New South Wales, for example, in payroll tax, FID, stamp duties, excises and the like, businesses will simply migrate to surrounding New South Wales or even to major centres like Sydney or Melbourne. On the other hand, if ACT taxes are significantly low compared to New South Wales or interstate elsewhere, some businesses might be attracted here, but our revenue effort would most likely fall below that of the States and the Territory would be penalised by the Grants Commission and the financial Premiers Conference for underachievement on revenue raising.
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