Page 2268 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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The major final charges against the advance in 1992-93 related to unanticipated legal expenses, including settlement of civil and criminal injury claims in the legal services to government program; initial payments for the purchase of Macarthur House in the corporate development for DUS program; the impact on the environment and conservation program of changed ACTEW billing cycles, and higher grass mowing costs associated with an abnormal growing season this year; the impact on the health program of a number of unforeseen events at the end of the financial year, including the Commonwealth Bank strike and delayed reimbursements from the Commonwealth; and funding to the land program to facilitate the purchase of a lease for on-sale to the Commonwealth. Further details on final charges against the advance will be available in relevant 1993-94 budget documentation.
Madam Speaker, I have also arranged to table today a statement reconciling the 1992-93 budget appropriations and final outcome. This responds to matters raised by the Public Accounts Committee and the 1992 Estimates Committee. Further details and explanations will be provided in relevant agency financial statements for 1992-93 and in budget documentation being prepared for 1993-94.
Madam Speaker, the Government has, by careful management, been able to meet emerging needs during the year without adding to the budget other than expenditures which have been fully funded by the Commonwealth. It has met these needs whilst containing total expenditure to 2.4 per cent less than the budget time estimates. This achievement places the ACT in a strong position to meet the enormous pressures placed on the 1993-94 budget, which I have previously indicated to the Assembly will be the most difficult budget faced since self-government. I believe that the outcome reaffirms the Labor Government's responsible budget management. It also represents an excellent management effort by all programs under extremely difficult circumstances. The results achieved increase my confidence in the ACT's ability, under a responsible Labor Government, to continue to meet the challenges placed on us by the cutbacks in Commonwealth funding we have experienced and which we will face in 1993-94 and future years. This will require extremely difficult adjustments, but the Government has a proven track record of managing such adjustments in the long-term interests of the ACT.
MR KAINE (3.47): Madam Speaker, the ability of this Government to engage in political doublespeak to make even the worst figures look like a victory and good management absolutely confounds me. We are going into a new budget year and the Chief Minister is panicking on the fifth floor because she has a budget gap and she does not know how to fill it. She has just produced figures that show not that the Government has managed well but that it has managed badly, and she comes in here and talks about their successes.
I have seen these figures only during the time that the Chief Minister has been speaking and obviously we will subject them to an in-depth analysis. I presume that we will have an opportunity to examine some of these claims that the Government is making during the estimates process when the Chief Minister has to produce the aggregate accounts for fiscal 1991-92. We can deal with it in much more detail then. But I have had a look for a few short minutes at both what the Chief Minister said and the figures that she has tabled, and the first thing that strikes me, Madam Speaker, is that the Chief Minister is claiming this good management record.
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