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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2185 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

The role of the Estimates Committee is one which this Assembly in the past has always taken very seriously, and this year has been no exception. All members of the Assembly but one took an active part in the committee's work, and the task of scrutinising the Government's budget was as thorough and as detailed as the inadequate documents and the evasive evidence provided by the Government would allow. It has always been the task of the Estimates Committee to undertake this kind of scrutiny, Mr Speaker, but this is the first time that the scrutiny has resulted in the kind of recommendations that the Assembly now has before it.

In making those recommendations I know that the committee examined very closely both the Government's own spending proposals and the evidence which was put before the committee from the community by way of reaction to the budget. The committee deliberated at length over this evidence and in the end decided that the Government's proposals were not adequate in a number of areas of the budget. Those areas, put briefly, were education, mental health, the mandatory reporting of child abuse, and the control of illegal waste dumping.

Mr Speaker, the fact that these recommendations have come forward is illustrative of a number of important things. First, the Government clearly did not do its consultative homework on the budget before it was delivered. I think this is a great shame at any time, but from a government which promised to be open and consultative it is a real insult. In fact, this minority Government did not even find time to consult all parties in this Assembly on the make-up of its budget. The Labor Party somehow slipped from the appointment book altogether, and I know that some other MLAs consider their consultation opportunity to have been cursory at best.

The second problem for the Government is that this report demonstrates that its promises simply cannot be trusted. This is certainly the case in relation to education. We had repeated assurances from this Government, both before and after the election, that there would be no cuts to the education budget; but, when it came to the crunch, what did they do? They left Education with a shortfall in their budget of some $3.8m, which can be accommodated only by reducing teacher numbers and reducing educational opportunities and outcomes for Canberra's students.

On the issue of mandatory reporting of child abuse, Mr Speaker, we have had continuing assurances from the Minister that his Government has a policy of implementing a mandatory scheme. What did we find in the budget? In Mrs Carnell's budget - her three-year budget, so-called - there is no provision whatsoever for the funding of such a scheme. Instead, there is a paltry amount of $50,000 each year, when the Minister himself conceded to the Estimates Committee that the scheme would cost some millions to implement. Nowhere in the budget is the real cost of a genuine mandatory child abuse reporting scheme reflected, not even in the forward estimates. It is the same with illegal waste dumping. The Government has made no provision in its budget to monitor occurrences of illegal waste dumping, or to employ the additional resources necessary to police what has become a serious problem in this Territory.

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