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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3384 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

I think it is also important to realise that in every single budget since self-government asset sales have actually been added to revenue. Just look at the three years of the Follett Government. Probably the most precious asset for the ACT is land. Over those three years land sales were $131m. What happened to the money that the Territory got as a result of those land sales? It was added directly to revenue. The thing that is really interesting about that is that there were significant borrowings in some of those years. Land sales were added directly as an asset sale. Mr Osborne, if you suggest that this approach - I think it was actually Mr Moore who suggested it - is selling off the family silver, the previous Government flogged off the farm or at least the back paddocks, anyway.

MR OSBORNE: Mr Speaker, I really do not give a stuff what the previous Government did, to be quite honest. That was a very interesting answer, Mrs Carnell. I am very pleased to hear that last year it was $280m and this year it is $232m. On another issue very similar to that, I noticed also - - -

Mr Hird: This is supposed to be a supplementary question.

MR OSBORNE: Mr Speaker, could you shut Rudolph the red-nosed politician up?

MR SPEAKER: I am trying to establish whether you are asking a supplementary question or another question. If it is another question, of course you will be ruled out of order.

MR OSBORNE: It is a supplementary question. The Territory's financial liabilities, I notice, are around $2 billion, of which just over half is the Government's commitment to superannuation. Officials from the Office of Financial Management advised me yesterday that by the year 2005 this figure will have risen to approximately 25 per cent of the Territory's total annual operational budget. Given this frightening fact, what are you doing or planning to do to address this serious problem?

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am very happy to answer a second question. It is a second question, but I am really happy to answer it. Mr Osborne has actually raised a very important issue, and that is the issue of unfunded superannuation. As Mr Osborne obviously has been very well briefed by OFM officials, he will know that last year there was an actuarial report on our unfunded superannuation which actually increased it by some $90m in one go. An actuarial report on unfunded superannuation is done every three years. It just happened to have happened in the last 12 months, which has significantly increased our liability in that area.

The point that Mr Osborne made is very valid. Any government must start to address this problem. How do you address the problem? The only way you can address the problem is to move the budget into surplus. That is the only way that the whole situation can be addressed. There are a number of ways of moving a budget into surplus. We certainly had a number of options in this particular budget. We could have dramatically reduced expenditure. Dramatic expenditure reductions mean massive redundancies. We do not believe that that is an appropriate approach in Canberra right now.

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