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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1814 ..

MR OSBORNE (3.39): Mr Speaker, I will keep my comments fairly brief at this time, as there will be other opportunities to speak on the budget in more detail. At the outset, I would like to say that, in the main, this is a very good budget. I can recall the trepidation with which I read my first budget as a member in 1995 and my absolute astonishment at the shocking state of the territory's finances. It was painfully obvious to all and sundry that we had not been living within our means as a community for a long time.

There was some disagreement yesterday between Mr Humphries and Mr Quinlan over the size of the operating loss that the government had inherited from Labor, but I think that it was generally agreed to be around $345 million to $350 million. With the introduction of full accrual accounting the following year, a more gruesome picture came into focus over the extraordinary size of our unfunded superannuation liability. I recall that most members were becoming aware of the true size of that problem only for the first time. Despite protests to the contrary, I still believe that the legacy of debt that was created in the first four years of self-government-and it pains me to say that it was done substantially by successive Labor governments-is not something to be proud of.

The transformation from that point, six budgets ago, to today has been quite remarkable. Members will be aware of the number of times that I have spoken in previous budget debates about the importance of the territory living within its means. In fact, I have legislation on the table that supports the principle. There have been times over the past five years that I thought I would never see a budget being tabled that contained a surplus, but we have one at last. I believe that the government is to be applauded for it.

Whether the turnaround has come on the back of good economic policy, a general upturn in the economy of the country or just plain good luck, getting the bottom line back into the black is worthy of praise and it would be churlish of me to do otherwise. Of course, I also acknowledge that a factor in our economic turnaround is the substantial increase in funding from the Commonwealth Grants Commission.

Before I move on to comment on a few specific matters, I cannot let pass the opportunity to note the superannuation liability. Since 1996, I have been less complimentary towards those who have allowed the unfunded superannuation liability to become an absolute monster. The government made it very clear during the Assembly debates over the sale of ACTEW that funding the liability was fully dependent on the sale. As an Assembly, we were repeatedly told that there was just no option other than the sale; yet the government seems to have come up with a workable plan that will have our superannuation scheme fully self-funding within an eight-year period. Whilst that is good news, I am not quite sure now how I ought to regard that chapter in our history.

There are a number of initiatives in this budget that deserve praise, especially those that support families. The Justice and Community Safety Committee, which I chair, made considerable mention of family support programs in its report last month on the draft budget. During its inquiry into the draft budget, the committee was provided with the results of a study by the Australian Institute of Criminology which showed that, for every dollar spent on family therapy programs, society could gain up to $11 in benefits. I believe that it makes a lot of sense, then, for us as a community to invest money in families that are struggling.

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