Page 423 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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the Chief Minister's initiatives to provide jobs for the long-term unemployed simply have not worked. Our three major employment bases - that is, the public sector, construction and retailing - are all contracting in employment terms. Ms Follett simply has not come up with any answers to diversify and expand our jobs market.
The Chief Minister has pointed to - her words again - "a record of financial responsibility". This is from a government which intends to borrow at least $220m over the next four years. Yes, we do have the lowest debt in Australia, but we have had self-government for only five years. It is very hard to compare. Now there are clear signs that Ms Follett intends to pursue heavy borrowings as her sole strategy to offset Commonwealth funding reductions. Remember that this is a government that told us in its last budget that it would raise $49m more in taxes and charges but actually went ahead and spent $56m more. How does the Chief Minister pursue efficiencies in the operations of Government departments? It is the old salami slicing approach; 2 per cent across the board in every department. That means that more efficient areas, such as some of the areas in Mr Connolly's portfolio, suffer because of Ministers who simply cannot cope in their own areas. Probably the best example of this is Mr Berry and ACT Health.
I was surprised to hear the Chief Minister claim that local business confidence is growing in the ACT. I am sure that she will not mind me telling the Assembly that private investment in the ACT declined by more than 7 per cent in the year leading up to the September quarter 1993.
Mr Humphries: She meant that it was growing smaller.
MRS CARNELL: Yes, growing smaller. I must have got it wrong. That is despite an increase in investment across the rest of Australia of 3 per cent. In the ACT investment has fallen by 7 per cent; in the rest of Australia it has increased by 3 per cent. Supposedly, that is a good result. If something was not good news - of course, that was not good news - it was not in Ms Follett's statement. Ms Follett did not put any of those things in her ministerial statement last week, just the good bits.
Ms Follett also touched on three shining examples of Labor's commitment to the people of Canberra - the Electoral (Amendment) Bill, definitely a shining example; the new public service, another shining example; and she even talked about ACT Health.
Mr De Domenico: The one that is nearly $5m down in six months?
MRS CARNELL: That is right. It was nice to see Ms Follett's promise last week to implement the electoral system chosen by the people of the ACT, but that certainly was not the system she put before the Assembly last year. Ms Follett also turned her back on a golden opportunity to reform the public service as it moves towards official separation from the Commonwealth. One can only wonder what will be left of our public hospital system by the time Mr Berry has finished with it. Certainly, these are three shining examples of Ms Follett's Government. She spoke about a charter of patients' rights, which is only window-dressing when there are 3,688 people who cannot even get a bed and do not have any rights whatsoever.
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