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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4951 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I will now turn to the indicative year-end forecast, which has also been included in this report. The Office of Financial Management has provided an indicative year-end forecast of an operating loss of $152m, potentially $84m better than the 1997-98 budget and $1m better than last year's outcome. This forecast is based on available information to the end of October, while also including known pressures and opportunities which have arisen or are foreseen for the remainder of the year. The year-to-date performance and the indicative forecast for 1997-98 demonstrate the continued achievement of improved financial management outcomes by this Government. I should point out to members that the actual outcome for 1997-98 could be expected to vary according to circumstances that arise after, or are unknown at the time of, the forecast being prepared. They could create a larger operating loss or a smaller one.

At this point, Mr Speaker, it is appropriate that I use a number of illustrations and examples of the Opposition's approach to financial management. When I presented the audited result for 1996-97 in the last sitting week, I was pleased to hear that at least Mr Whitecross had learnt something as a result of the financial management reforms. I recall that Mr Whitecross corrected himself to refer to the 1996-97 outcomes as an operating loss rather than a deficit. That is a big step in the right direction. Mr Whitecross also had the good grace to acknowledge the performance of this Government's financial management by referring to the 1996-97 outcome on more than one occasion as a "significant improvement". I could not agree more. In this regard Mr Whitecross could be considered to have taken a balanced approach to his analysis and representations. Here it is, Mr Berry, a balanced approach. I will make it simpler. In contrast with this balanced approach, Mr Berry on most occasions since becoming Shadow Treasurer has been silent on financial management; but unfortunately, when we do hear from him, it is usually a one-sided approach aimed at sensationalised headlines based on Berrynomics. We could call this one Berrynomics. This is simpler. This is Mr Berry being somewhat upset that his "Working Capital" report did not have any money to fund it. It was very unfortunate, but what can you do? That is the story.

Regardless of the established framework of financial management being applied in the ACT, which is consistent with Australian accounting standards, Mr Berry appears to be able to apply his own interpretation of the numbers. We have seen this very regularly. Perhaps I should simply illustrate the Government's financial management of the Territory for last year. Let us focus on the bottom line for last year, which clearly shows an improvement of $78m. That is a huge improvement in one year. The question for those who do not understand financial management - here we are, Mr Berry - is: Which number is bigger? The big number on this side is the budget and the little one is the outcome. That is how much better we did. Maybe there are too many zeros there. Maybe we had better make it a bit easier by getting rid of the zeros. Here we are, Mr Berry. Here is the budget, $231m; and the outcome, $153m. Is it easier when the numbers are a bit smaller? Maybe not. Maybe we should go to apples. We thought it would be two apples and it was only one apple. We did not spend as much money as we thought, Mr Berry. The reality is that the outcome for this budget was significantly better than we believed it would be. In fact, it was $78m better than we expected. I can only assume that if those opposite are elected at the next election we will see more from Professor Berry of the Berry University giving us more very interesting information on his underpinning Berrynomics. I think that would be Berry bad.

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