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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1450 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, at first blush, this budget reads well. There is something for everyone. There is a raft of commendable initiatives, and a whole group of community organisations and interest groups who welcome the news that their lobbying has had a result. But the stardust sprinkle can blind onlookers to what lies beneath. Canberrans need to take a moment to wipe the stardust away and look more closely.

Budgets are about setting priorities, about setting out government strategies across all the range of activities governments manage on behalf of the communities they represent. A government's annual budget has to be read not only for the year it describes but also as part of a continuum across the ups and downs of the economic cycle.

It is not sufficient, responsible or competent to present a single budget as a stand-alone blueprint for economic management. Budget cycles last more than a single year. We are entitled to look at this budget in that light and ask what it says about this government's sense of priorities and the manner in which it deals with the vagaries of the economic cycle-Mr Humphries' forecast of stormy seas.

The answers are disappointing but not unexpected. We are entitled to wonder whether the Humphries government wants to pay any real regard to economic cycles or just ignore them, or deal with what happens when it happens rather than plan ahead. Why else the optimistic growth forecasts? Why else the rundown of the cash reserve over four years, when the outyears do not look so promising?

What does this year's budget say about the government's sense of priorities? The answer is clearer but just as disappointing. The No 1 priority of this government is, of course, its re-election. That much is clear. The commitment to that priority has blinkered the government's consideration of how it might more judiciously and strategically allocate the resources available to it in the interests of the community it represents.

That is the explanation for the stardust that Mr Humphries has scattered over the political landscape in his attempt to buy office next October. It is the reason so many community organisations and interest groups feel a little better after the budget but still have a sense of "what if" or "if only". It is the reason this budget is such a classic example of the election year budget. And it is a fact that will be apparent to those Mr Humphries is relying on for a vote.

Mr Speaker, one thing more needs to be said about the nature of budgets and the formal responses to them. As I said earlier, budgets set government priorities and strategies to manage the operations governments are elected to deal with. They are not about the plans and priorities of oppositions. We are entitled to use this address to critique the Treasurer's announcement of two days ago.

Mr Humphries has been quick to seize on what he regards as favourable reviews of his budget. But he either quotes the usual suspects or he quotes the more independent observers selectively. He liked the Canberra Times editorial, he told us yesterday in question time. He liked it of course, but he read only every second line. He missed the bit about the cynical view being that the budget was a vote-buying one. There was a certain amount of that, said the Times in glorious understatement, but Mr Humphries missed that line.

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