Page 3214 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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I recommend to the Minister for Health that, just before they are signed, he should take them to other members of the Assembly and say, "This is what we are looking at". The health budget is going to continue to be a problem, and I suggest that the Minister should attempt to tie other people in if he can.
I will make a few other comments on matters I found interesting in relation to maintenance of law and order, Mr Connolly's portfolio. I notice that for police there is going to be a $205,000 reduction in motor vehicles. I wonder whether we could have got more than that simply by buying Lada Nikis, if that is the intention of the Minister. How is that $0.205m going to be saved? Maybe it is just a reduction from V8s to V6s or something along those lines.
Mr Connolly: Pushbike patrols.
MR MOORE: I acknowledge the interjection from the Minister about pushbike patrols. I imagine that we will see a continuation of that very positive contribution to the community.
In concluding, I draw attention to some positive aspects, such as the men's shelter in the housing and community services area. I would like to ask a final question. (Extension of time granted) When the Chief Minister replied today to a dorothy dix question about her own department, very obvious by its absence, when she carefully defended her department, was the position of Head of Administration and his support.
MR STEVENSON (3.47): The Labor Government has jumped into a chasm with this budget, not knowing where the bottom is. I speak of something that has not been highlighted to any degree, and that is borrowing. The ACT has been in a unique position, and the Labor Party was in a unique position because of it. They inherited something that was not already in hock because of earlier government mismanagement; yet they have finally gone down the perilous road that leads to the sorts of problems that every single State in Australia has, some of them being worse than others. Let me particularly point out Victoria, where 23 per cent of all tax money collected goes to servicing the debt - just the interest. In other words, the Government has to take $130 for every $100 it wants to spend on government services. I read in the newspaper yesterday about the Victorian Government saying that things were coming along nicely. What a bizarre situation!
There is only one reason to borrow. The only reason to borrow is if you have a productive use for the money, if it is going to earn you money. Let us say that the will of the people of Canberra was initiated and we had a very fast train, but say we needed a station for it. Borrowing for something like that could well be justified for the benefit that would come back to the ACT through increased tourism and the money those people would bring in. In this case, we have a $78m Commonwealth Grants Commission budget cut to the ACT and a $77m borrowing by the Labor Party.
I believe that the ACT Assembly, in the whole, has absolutely no right and no justification to place our children and our children's children in debt. In some Australian States it has got so bad that, when you talk about it, all they now say is, "Well, what can you do? It is useless. It is gone on for too long". Could the Labor Party have done something to plan for it? Could this Assembly? In my reply to the budget speech on 28 September 1989 I said:
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