Page 3228 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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Mr Moore also pointed out that the Government is trying to get another $5m-odd from ACTEW and that, purely and simply, when translated into laymen's terms, is a services tax. That is the very thing about which this mob across the road, months ago, were saying, "Horror, bleep, horror, horror, Liberal governments, John Hewson, how terrible!". If you are going to use ACTEW as a means of collecting taxes, say so. I know that in difficult times every government does it, all over the country; but, for heaven's sake, come clean and say to the community, "This is why we are doing it". Mr Connolly, when Mrs Carnell was on her feet, started talking about making it less than New South Wales. To be honest, I do not give a damn about what New South Wales is doing in terms of this; we are now talking about the people of the ACT. Madam Speaker, those are some of the realities of the budget.
I asked Ms Follett a question this afternoon during question time. In her speech - it is quite clear - she said that, over and above any land servicing provisions and land sales, there would be $11m from asset sales. Asset sales are not new. Mr Kaine quite eloquently pointed out that when he was Chief Minister there was the Rae Else-Mitchell report and the Priorities Review Board report that brought out all these sorts of things. Ironically, they are coming back to haunt this Government time and time again. Everybody realises what needs to be done. Anyway, Ms Follett could not answer when I asked, "What particular assets are you going to sell? Where is the provision in the budget for the receipt of the $11m?". We could find $1.95m. She tried to fob it off as part of the land program, but she said quite clearly that this was over and above the land sales. The budget mentions the sale of sites under "Environment and Conservation"; all these sites around Canberra. The budget speech contains reference to $11m, but nowhere in the budget papers is there a receipt of $9m, or $9.1m, which is the difference between $1.95m for the sale of housing properties in relation to the asbestos program, and the $11m that Ms Follett mentions in her speech. So we are already looking at a deficit of a further $9m on top of the $74.4m that the Chief Minister was alluding to. That is how fudgy the figures and the speeches presented to us are.
Let us now have a look at particular programs, because a lot has been said about what Mr Davis said this morning in the Canberra Times. A lot of what Mr Davis said - - -
Mr Lamont: Who?
MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Davis, a very well-respected economic writer, Mr Lamont, for your information. Let us also have a look at what has been said from time to time by Professor Hughes, from the Australian National University, and by Dr David Chessell, from Access Economics, and I can name others.
Let us look at ACTION buses. People have mentioned how ACTION buses are going to save $4m from last year. Actually ACTION buses will be spending $63m next year. What did it spend last year? It spent $54m. Mr Connolly is going to jump up and down, point his finger, and say, "Yes, but a lot of that is for buying 33 new buses". So it is, Mr Connolly; but every Canberra household will be subsidising ACTION buses in the coming year - $630 per household in comparison with $540 per household last year. So we are subsiding it more this year than last year. Ironically, the budget papers also say - these are not my words, but the words of the budget papers - that there has been a reduction in patronage of ACTION buses of 3.3 per cent. So we are spending more, but fewer people are using the service.
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