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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (1 May) . . Page.. 1304 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
Commonwealth spending continues to be a significant influence on growth in the ACT and, with a federal election in sight, we can reasonably expect some growth in Commonwealth spending over the previous very lean year. Recent interest rate cuts and increases in the first home owners grant will also stimulate consumer demand and employment in all areas of the economy, especially the housing and construction industry.
Overall, this government's economic strategy includes these elements:
balancing the budget;
working to ensure the Commonwealth outsourced jobs stay in Canberra;
targeting industry sectors with strong growth potential;
promoting Canberra as the economic centre for south eastern New South Wales;
keeping taxes in line with, or lower than, taxes in New South Wales;
providing sound financial management;
keeping the top credit rating, AAA; and
remaining committed to microeconomic reform.
Draft budget initiative
This has been the second year running that the government has released details of the draft budget for consultation through the Assembly committee system. We do this because the community has appreciated the opportunity to have meaningful input into the budget process, even if the Labor Party has not.
This year we acknowledged complaints that the initial consultation process in the last budget year contained too much detail. Instead of releasing an entire draft budget, therefore, we released the draft budget initiatives together with costings of these initiatives as well as a capital works program.
More than a month was available for committees to study the initiatives and report. While complaints were again made about the lack of time, one would have thought that the reports would reflect a month's work by the committees. With a few exceptions-some notable-the committees have not shown any enthusiasm for the task. It is one thing to snub the government; snubbing the community is something you do at your own risk.
We have an enthusiastic government, an enthusiastic community and a recalcitrant Labor Party. Despite that, we remain committed to the consultation process and will look at ways to ensure that, in future, the community is not disadvantaged by committees that lack interest in the task.
Financial relations with the Commonwealth
This year was another successful year for the ACT with regard to Commonwealth/state/territory financial relations. We achieved increases in Commonwealth funding to the territory amounting to $92.8 million between 2000-01 and 2001-02. This increase, however, recognises the abolition of a number of state taxes and increased costs incurred as a result of national tax reform.
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