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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 451 ..

MS TUCKER

or disadvantaged adults and families will have on our welfare services or perhaps on our legal systems in future years, not to mention the social dimension of this lack of support. I was interested to hear Mr Stefaniak say that he did not like the work of the Education Committee because we were dealing with Federal issues, such as work for the dole. I find that very worrying, if Mr Stefaniak does not understand that a work for the dole project in primary schools, which influences ACT teachers, ACT unemployed people and ACT children, is not an issue of interest to this parliament.

With these caveats in mind, I would like to return to the detail of the budget. The Greens do not have the time or resources to come up with a complete budget, certainly not in the timeframe that the Government has set for the Assembly in setting out this debate for today. Obviously, without the resources of the Government, we could not possibly come up with a comprehensive budget. I cannot provide figures on what the operating loss should be now and in the future and specific targets for revenue raising or expenditure in particular areas. I can talk about principles, priorities and trends and leave it to the Government to convert this to budget numbers if they want to.

In line with the Greens' call for ecological, social and economic sustainability and intergenerational equity, we agree that the Government should be moving towards the elimination of the Territory's operating loss. We do not want to generate debts now that our children are unable to afford to pay back. There obviously needs to be a balancing between current and future demands on government spending, with some flexibility built in for the timing to allow for occasions when it might be appropriate to maintain or even increase the operating loss in the short term to address some particular problem in the local economy.

Obviously, to reduce the operating loss, we need to both restrain expenditure and pursue revenue growth. We should not be looking at just one side of the equation. However, I do not believe that Canberrans would accept a broad-scale reduction in essential services such as education and health. I believe that most Canberrans would be prepared to pay more for government services if they knew that their money was being used effectively on priority areas and not being squandered on such things as exorbitant executive salaries or peripheral projects like the futsal slab, the Feel the Power campaign or the Bruce Stadium upgrade.

So, rather than just looking at across-the-board cuts to government spending, the Government should also be looking at reallocation of funding between areas of government. The Greens have their own views on what areas of government spending should be protected and what could be reduced. The Greens believe that any budget measures should promote social equity and ecological sustainability. Government expenditure should also focus on meeting the broadest public need rather than catering for specific interest groups. Education, health and community services and environment protection are therefore areas where we think expenditure should be maintained in real terms. Efficiencies could still be sought within these areas, but we believe that any savings should be redirected within the specific portfolios rather than be taken out altogether.

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