Page 2074 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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We will improve resourcing for the arts and cultural community. For example, $1.5m will be allocated to the Canberra Institute of the Arts, School of Dance and Drama. A major initiative for both businesses and individuals will be the reduction of the 3c a litre business franchise fee on petrol. That means that 3c a litre will really come off petrol prices. This will result in forgone revenue of about $11m by year three, but it is consistent with our policy of putting the interests of the community first without making small business go broke. Our approach is to achieve a genuine and sustainable reduction in fuel prices, not a phoney one based on subsidised land rentals and at the expense of some small business owners.
Ratepayers in Canberra have felt the brunt of Labor's inability to control its spending. Rates, which were historically low and made Canberra an attractive place to settle in, have escalated rapidly as a result of Labor's inability to manage. To restore predictability to Canberra's homes and businesses, and put a stop to Labor's mind-set that ratepayers can always be socked for more, the Liberal Party has already committed itself to cap any rate increases in line with the consumer price index in its first year of office, while reviewing the method of charging rates, and that must be done.
The cost of public transport has become a serious drain on the ACT's finances. ACTION's benchmarking study, to which I referred earlier, identified many potential improvements which could be made to its operations and indicated the savings which could flow from those improvements. It is abundantly clear, from this study and other work conducted by academics and private firms, that savings of at least $27m per year are readily achievable. To make these savings on behalf of the community, we will competitively tender and contract out the ACT's public transport services. This saving will be achieved while maintaining community service obligations. Indeed, for many transport users, the quality of service - its availability, punctuality and cost - will be greatly improved. The final major item of saving in my alternative budget is termination of the high cost services of Comcare for workers compensation. The cost is reflected in two ways - as part of departmental running costs or as inflated costs of services such as transport, electricity and water. Informal estimates conducted by government agencies and the calculations of actuaries indicate that the cost of insurance could be reduced by about $10m if the public sector either self-insured or contracted out.
The Liberal program for reform has many other initiatives which will lead to much better use of our community resources but will have little or no impact on my alternative budget strategy relative to the Government's. In other words, they are cost or revenue neutral. For example, under our schools based management program we will maintain funding for education in real terms over the three-year period on a per capita basis. Our program for the land and planning portfolio includes provision for the establishment of a genuine one-stop shop for planning approvals. At present a significant cost is imposed on businesses and households due to the complexities and delays in obtaining approvals to build. At the one-stop shop one person would be assigned to handle all inquiries and to deal with all the procedures from start to finish. There would be a contract to complete the approvals within a fixed period, backed by payment to the consumer if the contract was not fulfilled. The impact of this program on the budget would be negligible, but the benefit to the community, in terms of both convenience and reduction in cost, would be huge.
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