Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2167 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

I give a telling example for the Assembly. We are to take $300,000 out of the Assembly budget, which we have tossed around for the last three years. Anybody who understands can see that that decision will have a far greater impact than simply bringing in a bottom line. Once we could see how cuts were applied willy-nilly to a small budget like the Assembly budget, we were filled with horror about the impact of cuts on other areas of much more profound significance to the community. It is easy to argue that we can do with less, and we will; but it shows a lack of pride as well as a lack of concern and a lack of real knowledge about how any of the departments work when, after the Assembly had brought in a $140,000 surplus in the last budget, money was taken from the Assembly. We were doubly penalised. Now we are under the threat that some of our excellent staff may have to go and some services to the community may have to be drastically curtailed. This is from a government that said, "We will save $70,000 from not having Tuesday night sittings". We do not have Tuesday night sittings, but we do not have that saving within our budget - and at 5 o'clock we lock ourselves in and lock the public out. What absolute nonsense!

This is just a minor example of what has been done across the board to every department. The Government is saying, "You have been spending $10. You are going to spend only $5 from now on. Too bad about who gets hurt along the way. Too bad about the impact". When we went into detail in quite a few areas, our suspicions were verified. There was no justification. There was no thorough analysis of what the cuts to unemployment programs would result in. I refer to recommendation 18.

Mr De Domenico: The same ones you were going to make.

MS McRAE: You are in government. This is your report. This is a peer review. Our questioning produced nothing to make us feel secure in the belief that you know what you are doing. There was no analysis of the changes to the tips, what would happen with the closure of the Ainslie Transfer Station and what impact tip fees would have. I refer to recommendation 20. There was no analysis of what was going to happen with changes to the car fleet. We were told, "We are going to sell it". We were offered a confidential analysis. What a joke! We are not in here for information given in confidence. We want an open, accountable government that can argue its position with clarity. We did not find that.

We found no analysis of money forgone for advertising on ACTION buses. We found no analysis of how public transport was going to work. We were simply told that they were going to survey the people who use the buses and the people who do not use the buses. How can you survey someone who is not on a bus? I ask you! This is what we were told.

Mr De Domenico: You knock on their door and ask them why they do not use the buses.

MS McRAE: Mr De Domenico, if you knocked on my door, I would not talk about buses to you. I would just tell you to get lost. Through the estimates process we found that this Government is in a hurry to change things; but, when pressed, it could not make it clear why these changes had to happen.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .