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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3480 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Since one of the primary objectives of the Financial Management Bill is to enhance transparency in budget decision-making, I hope detailed information on program expenditure is readily available in the Estimates Committee. This new system seems to hide more than it reveals. It is virtually impossible to tell from the budget papers what the level of subprogram expenditure is, and exactly which initiatives are new and which initiatives have been simply repackaged from previous years' programs.

There is a question mark over a number of the new announcements in the budget in terms of whether the resources are rolled over from unspent funds last year. There is also concern that some new initiatives are simply coming from resources originally allocated to other programs or from the Commonwealth. For example, the Government announced funding of $110,000 for the schools equity fund, claiming credit and saying, "This is twice as much as was originally stated in the Assembly", but half of that comes from the Commonwealth. It is really disappointing that we still, this year, are not seeing a clear distinction between where the funding is coming from because it obviously does give a very false impression and it does not inspire confidence. Examples like this can be found all through the budget. Mrs Carnell said in her budget press release:

This budget delivers a cash surplus while maintaining services to the community. It requires no new borrowings and will allow us to begin repaying debt.

Mrs Carnell also went on to say that this is a jobs budget. Let us have a look at these statements. From a narrow economic perspective only, there is considerable debate over what the real deficit is. The figure seems to range from a surplus of $10m to a deficit of $230m, depending on whom you talk to.

Mr Humphries: That is a loss, not a deficit.

MS TUCKER: A loss. Right; I stand corrected. This clearly indicates that the accounting models are inherently rubbery and you can manipulate a set of statistics to get the outcome you want.

Mr De Domenico: No; it indicates that you do not understand.

MS TUCKER: At the briefing from your own people, they were talking about this deficit of $230m and how you can choose which deficit you want to look at. Mrs Carnell's so-called surplus came about only because of asset sales. Asset sales might provide a one-off cash bonus, but they are not a long-term economic solution. It is like sacking public servants and hiring them back on contracts. The asset sale and lease-back arrangements need to be closely analysed and the onus is on the Government to demonstrate in detail what the economic and social benefits are to the Territory, and I mean the relative costs and benefits not just now but also in the future. The claim in Mrs Carnell's speech that levels of services to the community will not be reduced is also a rather bold claim, considering that a number of services have already been cut in the lead-up to the budget, ranging from dozens of bus services to women's services related to domestic violence.

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