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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1810 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

putting in as never before. But, as with almost every claim made through this budget, once you put the claim in perspective it does not stand up to scrutiny.

The government announced that it would spend more on initiatives to fight crime, that it would spend $65 million on police. But look at the record of the government. In 1996-97, according to the Grants Commission, the ACT government spent $53 million on policing, but the need was calculated at $58 million. By 1998-99 the gap had increased. The ACT was spending $55 million on policing, against the Grants Commission's assessed need of $65 million.

In the meantime, Canberra's incidence of crime has grown exponentially. Burglaries were up over 50 per cent in the last year. In just the last year burglaries rose by 50 per cent. In 1999, over 6,000 homes-one in 12 Canberra families-were burgled while the minister for justice fiddled. The number of motor vehicle thefts in the June quarter last year was 909, the highest rate of motor vehicle thefts on record.

The record is similar on roads expenditure. In 1996-97, the expenditure was $18 million, against the need calculated by the Grants Commission of $32 million. In 1998-99 expenditure had grown to $23 million, but the need was assessed at $36 million. In that latter year this government underspent on roads by 35 per cent, a staggering underspending, but nevertheless smaller than the massive 42 per cent underspending of two years earlier. In the meantime, this vital component of the territory's capital infrastructure continued to run down. We all have a pothole that we drive past every day on the way to work, marking its growth.

The government has made much of the ACT's record on jobs and unemployment. There is no denying the unemployment rate in the territory, 5.2 per cent in March. It is much better than the national figure and, in its own way, it is to be applauded. But it has always been thus. The point to make is that the gap has narrowed in the years that this government has held office. Population growth remains well below the national figure and the gap between our unemployment rate and the national level inexorably closes. Things are not necessarily so, Mr Speaker.

In a similar vein, the budget papers reveal that the government has set aside $1.4 million to fund tender processes associated with the ACT's new prison. There is no capital provision for the facility's construction, despite the Attorney-General's insistence that building will start in the year 2000-01. An assembly committee is still deliberating on whether the prison is best built and operated in private or public hands. It seems that the government has made up its mind, yet there is no mention of that decision in the budget papers. Things, again, are not necessarily so.

But the most disingenuous initiative in this budget is the link to social capital. The government has allocated $3.5 million to building the territory's social capital, the so-called fourth dimension of the economy, adding to the concepts of financial capital, environmental capital and human capital. It spreads $3.5 million over 20 projects, five years too late. It is an afterthought-well, not so much an afterthought as a bit of mid-term electioneering. Like the expenditure on roads and police, the government is getting to the issue after it has allowed the situation to deteriorate.

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