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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1591 ..

responsible financial management. No government has done more to address the ACT's unfunded superannuation liability than this one. Years of neglect by Labor, just like their counterparts in other states, left the ACT with an emerging financial catastrophe.

In a significant difference to the draft budget, Mr Speaker, the government has formulated an eight-year plan to fully fund our superannuation liabilities. Up until now, governments have only really been interested in funding the accruing liability, not the liability that already exists.

As members know, the government repatriated $300 million from ACTEW earlier this year-match that if you can-which was put into our superannuation account. Any equalisation payment as a result of the proposed ACTEW/AGL joint venture partnership will also fund that liability.

The government is beginning payments, in this budget with $5 million, totalling $120 million across the forward years, as the first stages of this plan. Under this plan, within eight years, the ACT will self-fund its superannuation liabilities. That will be 16 years ahead of forecast, and will save this community hundreds of millions of dollars over that extended period. Mr Speaker, when our superannuation liability hits $2.3 billion in 2017, the ability for the government of the day to continue to provide essential community services will be the result of decisions taken in this budget.

On 29 February this year I announced the establishment of the Finance and Investment Advisory Board which will allow the ACT to take account of the expertise available from outside the government in the management of this building asset base. The plan I am announcing today will see 63 per cent of the ACT's superannuation liability funded by 2004, up from 29 per cent in 1999.

Conclusion

Mr Speaker, as we can see from the long faces opposite, this government has spent the last five years bringing the ACT's budget under control, and it consummates that process with this budget. Containing our expenditure, meeting the cost of essential community services, and keeping our revenue effort at approximately the levels of New South Wales have been difficult challenges. Every spending reduction, every extra dollar raised in new revenue, came at some political cost to this government. But today we see the result of five years of hard work. That result translates into a dividend to be returned to the ACT community.

It is a dividend which comes in several forms:

  • A secure financial future, with a budget in surplus;

  • Effective, efficient and expanding community services;

  • Reductions in taxation; and

  • A real plan to manage our long-term superannuation liabilities.

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