Page 2469 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 1993
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budget reductions in health and education". At the end of every year we find that they have spent more than they started with. They are fictions, and she has to stop that. The ACT economy needs relief from some of the ACT Government imposts to restore it to what it was before Mr Dawkins delivered his king hit.
Mr Lamont: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: I again raise the question of the relevance of the comments Mr Kaine is making. Quite simply, the content of his speech so far would be far better left to his response, as opposed to Mrs Carnell's response, to the ACT budget.
MR KAINE: I remind Mr Lamont that the matter is the consequences for the ACT of the Federal budget. If he does not want to listen, he can leave. He does not want to listen, I know.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Kaine, proceed, please.
MR KAINE: The ACT small business sector needs some incentives for growth and for increased job opportunities. In particular, the ACT district wine industry will flourish, with consumers now having to pay 31 per cent tax on their wine! Ms Follett must do these things under the black cloud of Commonwealth actions that, by the admission of the Treasurer, will increase the inflation rate to 3.5 per cent, will increase interest rates, and will pull the rug from under any chance of reduced unemployment.
The famous Follett nip and tuck method of budgeting is not going to be enough to achieve these outcomes, and a number of important decisions confront her. She has to establish a separate ACT public service. She has to determine what the ACT Government should be doing, the way it should be doing it, and the size of the work force needed to do it. She has to ensure a structure and organisation that will do the job at the least cost. Cost savings include specifically, over the next year, a low cost solution to the hospice problem - a low cost solution, not the high cost one - and stopping private use of government vehicles. Mr Dawkins has just made this more expensive for the ACT and it has to stop. It costs $1,000 a day for petrol just to drive these vehicles home at night. Does the Government pay any fringe benefits tax, I wonder, for the private use of these vehicles? The Chief Minister can save a quarter of a million dollars a year by saying that that stops. It is good advice.
She can save costs specifically by reducing the hordes of people on the government payroll as consultants, which is simply a way of fogging the number of people on the ACT Government Service payroll. They are in fact full-time employees and they should be paid as such. They should not be paid exorbitant salaries as consultants.
Mr Connolly: I thought you liked contracting out. You were doing it all the time.
MR KAINE: They are phoney consultants, and you know it, Mr Connolly. I can name a few, if you like.
Madam Speaker, I have to advise the Chief Minister and Treasurer that it is decision time, time to acknowledge that new answers have to be found to a range of questions. You cannot put the decisions off any longer, and you have been doing it for a long time. You have only your ideological cronies on the hill to blame for your increasingly invidious position.
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