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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1248 ..

MR WOOD: It is going to have an impact. It is not going to have any impact, says the Government, on what will happen in terms of consumer charges over the next few years. I saw something last week or the week before, when ACTEW went to the pricing commissioner looking for an increase and was knocked back.

Mr Kaine: It got a price increase.

MR WOOD: It did not get all it wanted, did it? No, it did not get what it wanted. I have no doubt that ACTEW, when it went chasing the price increase that it wanted, had in mind the impost the Government was about to place on it. I expect it was not able to say that to the pricing commissioner. But if you try to tell me that over the next few years this heavy demand now placed on ACTEW is not going to be reflected in consumer charges, I will not believe you. It cannot happen that way; it does not happen that way; it does not work that way; so, do not try to tell me that. If you do, you are trying to tell me that money comes from the trees; it is there for the picking; it is conjured up from nowhere. I am not here to defend ACTEW. ACTEW is an effective body in this town that runs an agenda that it keeps pretty well to itself sometimes. Nevertheless, the Chief Minister and others ought to be up front on this and tell us exactly what that impact will be.

The reality of the budget is, as I have said on a number of occasions, that there is a $200m shortfall in a budget of almost $1.5 billion. That is the fact. That is about 14 per cent of our budget, and I think that tells the story of how unsuccessful this Government has been in framing its budget and beyond that, more than that, in running this Territory and in running a viable and prosperous Territory. That is the real story in this budget. In principle, I do not argue with budget deficits. I believe there are times - and perhaps these are the times now, in this recession we have - when you run a deficit; you do undertake activity to generate employment; you generate enthusiasm in the private sector; you set an example to try to bring the Territory out of recession. I am not opposed to deficit budgets. I am opposed to the sort of disguising that has gone on in this budget. It is a jobs budget, but the fact is that there is still far too little applied to those jobs, far too few resources applied to generate much difference in this town. I suspect the reason for that limited amount of money that has been able to be put across is simply that the gap, that $200m, prevents it or does not allow it to happen.

Mr Speaker, I want to move on to the question of outsourcing. I heard some months ago the Federal Minister, at a meeting of business people in town, suggest that, when outsourced, Commonwealth work would reduce to about 70 per cent of what it currently was. That was the efficiency saving he was claiming. He was also unable to give any assurance to the Canberra business people who were at that breakfast that the business would be held in Canberra. It was a matter, he said at the time, of Canberra business getting together to bid for that and to hold it. But the whole mood at that meeting was one of pessimism that much could be done, given the intention of the Commonwealth.

I took up a lead from some of those business people - and it was an obvious step to take - that we needed some sort of ACT Government program to encourage and support business to apply for those outsourcing jobs and to win them. We have a large number of information technology companies in Canberra, but they are generally fairly small and,

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