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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 4 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 1065 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

This is a budget that tries to be clever, but outsmarts itself. This is a budget that develops a logic based on unsustainable forecasts. This is a budget that will collapse when the forecasts cannot be met. Therein, Mr Speaker, lies the threat in this budget - the threat that so pointedly denies the Chief Minister's claim that it is a clever document. The threat lies in the outyears. The threat in this budget is in the inevitable impact on the Canberra community that will flow from the failure to meet budget forecasts. When the forecasts fail, the slugs on the Canberra community will inevitably become harder. They will inevitably fall again on those sectors of the community least able to bear the cost.

But the budget papers reveal other worrying aspects about the outyears. In recent weeks, of course, in the run-up to the budget, the Chief Minister has been at some pains to distance herself from the cuts her Government agencies will be forced to make. Indeed, this budget trumpets the disbandment of the central redundancy pool. Instead, agencies will have to fund any redundancies that might become necessary. The Chief Minister, of course, has been somewhat uncertain about what impacts there will be on the ACT Public Service. During the election campaign, the reason proffered by the Chief Minister for the disbandment of the central redundancy pool was that restructuring in the ACT Public Service was finished; that it was over.

But there are more worrying indications elsewhere in the budget papers. The forward estimates reveal that, of the ACT's 34 departments, authorities and corporations, around half forecast static or declining employee expenses - staff costs - between now and the year 2001. "Static or declining employee expenses" is another euphemism for "lost jobs". The Chief Minister has said that she expects the bulk of that growth to come from the private sector. Mr Speaker, it will have to, because it is not going to come from a contracting ACT Public Service. And the fact of that is, of course, another connection between the Carnell Liberals and John Howard's Liberals. There is no difference. One form of Liberal government is the same as another. And in that fact lies the serious threat to Canberra.

Mr Speaker, if there is one reason why this budget might aptly be described as clever and caring, it is in the initiatives it has stolen from this side of the chamber. The Opposition is quite willing to give credit to the Government's cleverness in recognising good policy. There are, of course, several examples. Labor promised to establish an industrial supplies office, for instance. Labor promised a convention loan scheme. Labor committed to $1m worth of expenditure on tourism. The budget gives back to pensioners access to the dental scheme, established by a Federal Labor government and cut by John Howard. That was a Labor commitment, as was the reinstatement of the free spectacle scheme. Labor promised to spend $1m on mental health; the budget delivers $1.1m, plus some capital works. It delivers $75,000 to the Health Complaints Unit, despite no election commitments from the Liberals; the commitment came from Labor. These examples are by no means exclusive. There has to be some substance in the Territory budget. Where there is substance in this budget, where there is evidence of a clever and caring concern for the people of Canberra, it is drawn from the policy stance of this side of the chamber.

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