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Canberra Times . . Page.. 1643 ..

The Liberal Government is now paying Booz Allen and Hamilton $1m to enable it to renege on that promise, and the report had been seriously compromised within 24 hours of being released. Yet another promise was:

. an immediate reduction in payroll tax by one percentage point (from 7 per cent to 6 per cent);

That was the Liberals’ promise. Again, there is no explanation for breaking this one. It just did not happen. In its place we see merely the implementation of an increased threshold - a decision that, of course, I support because I announced it last year. That is just another fraud, and on big business this time.

The tourism sector was told:

A Liberal Government will ... allocate an extra $5 million in the first year to allow an expanded marketing campaign to promote Canberra as a first-rate business and tourism destination.

So, what did the Tourism Commission get from this budget? Precisely nothing. Instead, we get CanTrade, another nifty bit of jargon - you expect them all to start with K; KanTrade, the can-do culture - but, whatever CanTrade is, it got $1m, so there is $4m a year still not delivered. It was a fraud on the tourism sector.

In the city promoted as the cultural capital of Australia, the arts community learnt very quickly how much they could rely on this Government's word. The promise was:

The Canberra Liberals will boost funding to the Arts by $3 million over the term of the next Assembly.

The Minister, Mr Humphries, has attempted to say that this promise is one that has been kept; but not even the Canberra Times arts editor, who is usually known for being somewhat on Mr Humphries's side, would buy that one. He said:

While the modest increase in arts funding is welcome, the Government has not kept its promise.

This is a refrain we are going to hear a lot of. Another election promise breaks a leg. These are some of the most obvious examples of this Government's broken promises, but in fact the budget's impact goes even deeper than broken promises. It attacks the public sector in a way that we have come to expect from Liberal governments driven by dry economics. Whether they are headed by Malcolm Fraser or John Howard, Jeff Kennett or his disciple Kate Carnell, the attitude is the same: The public sector is bad and must be reduced and the private sector is good and should be given more from the public purse. Many public service jobs will go. The Canberra Times has calculated about 3,000. The Government has set aside redundancy payments for about 1,200 and it is continuing its recruitment freeze, so I believe that 3,000 is about a realistic figure.

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