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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 5 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 1548 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

We hear that promise at every budget. But does the community see the promise fulfilled? Do we ever see the outcome delivered? The answer is that we do not. The answer is that with each fresh budget we are asked again to weather the pain, to tighten the belt, to do more with less. It is that philosophical approach which most deeply concerns me and, I have no doubt, my colleagues in relation to this budget, because it is an approach which puts the financial bottom line ahead of the needs of people and the community. Budgets are here to serve people. As Mr Stanhope and Mr Quinlan said, people are not here to serve budgets. I think that, when it comes down to it, that is the fundamental difference between this side of the chamber and the other side of the chamber. It is the matter of emphasis and it is the philosophic approach that you bring to decision-making when you are putting together a budget.

Turning to some of the areas in the budget, I would like to outline some of my concerns. The Department of Urban Services performs a broad range of functions. It is perhaps one of the most important service delivery areas of the Government. The department in this budget is asked to restructure and has been provided with funds to restructure, a total of $10m. But the $10m is in the form of a loan which the department will have to repay. We know that on top of the $10m that will have to be repaid by the Department of Urban Services there is an additional $2m that has to be repaid in interest on that loan. That reflects a massive - there is no other word for it - assault on the structural integrity of that department.

At the end of this process, not only will the department have spent $10m on redundancies, but also it will have incurred costs in making people redundant - $2m in interest on top of the $10m principal that has to be repaid. That strikes me as false economy - completely false economy. It means that the Department of Urban Services will need to find an additional $2m after it has made all those people redundant to be able to repay in full the loan that has been provided. The implications in terms of the morale in the Department of Urban Services and the implications for the finances of the Department of Urban Services worry me immensely and they should worry every other member of this place because the Department of Urban Services is responsible for the provision of important municipal and other services which are essential to the good functioning of our city.

The other aspect at a departmental level that I am concerned about in the Urban Services area is the announcement that the department will be undertaking market testing of certain functions. These functions include environmental management and regulation, nature conservation and land management, along with information planning. Interestingly, the budget papers actually highlight that there will be savings worth $2.3m to be achieved from market testing. We should think about that for a moment. I thought market testing was when you went out to see whether there was a market for the services provided by the department and then you moved on to see whether you could make those contestable - that is, contract them out. Market testing is the first stage, but this budget says that they know before they have even tested the market that there will be savings of $2.3m. How do you know if you have not done the testing? It seems to me to be a very strange way of doing things.

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