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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2387 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

appears in the budget is $50,000 a year. In the Government's response to the Estimates Committee they have made a statement that supplementation will be provided for mandatory reporting. I am very pleased indeed to see that comment by the Government, because that is exactly what should happen. Of course, that supplementation should have been included in the budget. Any government that claims to have a three-year budget should have included that supplementation in the outyears. It is not included, so here we have the three-year budget failing, on the Government's own admission.

There are many other such instances. The payment of rent is another such instance that reduces any credibility that the notion that this was a three-year budget might have had. We have also had Mrs Carnell pretending that as part of her budget strategy she has an interest in reducing the Territory's borrowings or in not adding to the Territory's borrowings. The fact of the matter is that this year's budget has the highest borrowings that the Territory has ever indulged in. That is, again, an irrefutable fact. Mr Speaker, I think that in the framing of the budget Mrs Carnell could have been a lot more honest about that, as she could have been about her taxation strategy.

Mrs Carnell went to the election claiming that she would not add taxes, that not a penny more would it cost the Canberra taxpayer to have a Liberal government. Again, that was a totally empty promise by the Liberals and one which they could not break fast enough once they got into government. The fact of the matter is that, through measures largely brought about before the budget, the Government has added over $600 to the costs of every household in the ACT. Mr Speaker, I believe that there are a couple of other aspects in the - - -

Mr Humphries: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether Ms Follett would table the break-up of those figures, for the benefit of the members of the Assembly.

MS FOLLETT: I certainly will. I do not have it with me, Mr Speaker, but I am only too happy to table it. It is in my press release. I will table that. Mr Speaker, there are a couple of other matters in relation to the actual framing of the budget that I want to refer to. I believe that it is appropriate to refer to the reduction in payments to the Superannuation Provision Trust Account, which would be an investment to meet future superannuation liabilities. The reduction that the Government has made is some $19m each year; in other words, a total of $57m in the three-year life of this budget. I think that that is an extraordinarily short-sighted approach. It is an approach that really pays no regard to the need for the Government to make good and responsible provision for its future liabilities. When we were in government, it was always the case that we made as much provision as we possibly could for future superannuation liabilities, because we knew that they would grow. What Mrs Carnell has done - and I have only her word for it that she has done even this - is actually put aside enough money to meet the emerging cost of superannuation liabilities. There is nothing there for the future. I think that that is very poor budgeting indeed.

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