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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3484 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Housing appears to have taken a cut as well. We have not been able to get an answer yet about what the decrease in expenditure of $26m in the budget actually means. We do know that we have used housing money to fill the Federal budget black hole and that public housing stock will be sold off in the inner north. As for the new Kick Start scheme, no mention was made of the fact that this replaced a much better system, the ACT home purchase system. If it was not a better system it was a system with a very different target group and it enabled many tenants who will not be eligible to participate in Kick Start, because of their income levels, to successfully buy their own homes.

At this stage it looks like there are no major shocks in the education budget this year, although the Greens are still very concerned about the proposals for expanding school-based management next year and the equity implications of that. We still do not know the Government's response to the motion on the matter, debate on which has been adjourned in this place.

In the area of children's and youth services, we were interested to hear Mrs Carnell say that the Government would provide additional resources for the introduction of mandatory reporting if necessary. Obviously, the resources allocated in last year's budget were not nearly enough, but it is unclear where any new money will come from. In the disabilities area, Mrs Carnell has announced the COOOL project, which is a positive move, but it really seems to be replacing the beds that were lost through the closure of Lower Jindalee. The Greens are also concerned about the inappropriate concentration of resources for revitalisation in the city centre. Civic is not the only town centre in Canberra, and there are certainly parts of Belconnen and Woden that could do with revitalisation.

On the revenue side, the Greens are prepared to say that we believe it is appropriate to use tax as a mechanism of redistribution from the rich to the poor and achieving certain environmental objectives. Surveys consistently demonstrate that people are willing to pay higher taxes if the money is used wisely on important services such as health, education and environmental protection. Obviously, most of the solutions to our tax system do not lie in the ACT and, apart from rates, much of our tax base is quite regressive. That is why we are concerned about the impacts of the debits tax, and we will be asking questions on this initiative over the coming weeks. There are many issues that need to be raised, but we promised that we would be briefer this year and there will be plenty of opportunity for debate if we find out exactly what is hidden away in the budget papers.

In conclusion, the Greens do not really have a problem with Mrs Carnell revising her three-year budget strategy, released with great fanfare last year, but it does raise a number of issues. Most importantly, no-one should ever fall for the line that economic forecasts can be trusted, not that too many people in this place did think it would be a three-year budget, particularly as there was such little detail in last year's budget on how some of the so-called efficiencies were going to be achieved. I know the Greens queried the assumptions last year and it also was always dubious that the predicted increase in revenue from sources such as stamp duty could ever be achieved.

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