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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3470 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

When we look at the projections for growth and inflation, it is hard not to see the problem getting worse. Even on Mrs Carnell's forward estimates, there is evidence that she has no plan to address the underlying financial problems in the ACT budget. While revenue and expenditure are predicted to make only minor changes in the coming years, Mrs Carnell continues to predict cash surpluses. There is only one way she will achieve that - by more asset sales. In other words, Mrs Carnell's long-term financial management strategy is sell, sell, sell.

Mrs Carnell has yet again admitted defeat in her health budget. Far from health spending being reduced, as forecast in her three-year budget, it has actually gone up. So much for the expensive consultancies and the platitudes about curtailing costs. What happened to $8m saved for every million dollars spent on consultants? Do you remember that? What happened to the 1995 election promise of a $30m saving? Instead, Mrs Carnell has quietly torn up her election promise and built last year's budget blow-out into her bottom line. It is just all too hard for Mrs Carnell. What is even more concerning, however, is that there does not appear to be a link between increases or decreases in expenditure in the particular programs and economic growth problems. There is no direction. There are no solutions. She has postponed the problems indefinitely. Mrs Carnell has failed the test of financial management.

Mrs Carnell has also failed the test of fairness. While some Canberrans are struggling to find jobs in a shrinking job market, others will be slugged with increases in taxes and charges. From 1 July 1997 those of us with cheque accounts will be hit with a new tax. Every time you take money from an account with a cheque facility, tax is paid. This is 30c for every withdrawal, and this is the case even when you are not using a cheque. BAD taxes are well named. At the same time Mrs Carnell is cutting the financial institutions duty. The cost will be about $10m. But the difference is that the financial institutions duty falls heavily on business. Anyone withdrawing less than $750 will be worse off under these changes. So what the Government has done is cut taxes on business while ratcheting them up for households.

Car owners are going to be really slugged by the Liberal Government opposite. In the budget Mrs Carnell has increased the rate of stamp duty on car insurance. This will increase by 3 per cent. But that is not all. The Government, under the guise of finally providing Canberrans with the fifth ambulance, half of which was paid for in the last budget, has slapped an extra $15 on vehicle registrations to pay for it. Will this $15 be going to another ambulance or is this just another deceptive budget measure? Pensioners will be worse off. The Government has capped the general rates concession for all pensioners. It will be set at $250 and it will hurt. Any new pensioner with rates over $500 will be worse off. Mrs Carnell has failed the test of fairness.

Not only does this budget let the people down with its lack of measures to promote growth, lack of compassion for the unemployed, financial irresponsibility and lack of fairness. Mrs Carnell has also failed the test of budget honesty. One of the most striking features of this budget is the Government's lack of honesty with the Canberra community. Mrs Carnell claims that she has a $10m surplus and she claims that she did it without borrowings. But the financial transactions for Macarthur House, the Magistrates Court, the Challis Street office building in Dickson and ACTION buses are really, in effect,

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