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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2351 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

charges, and single zone, one price, one-size-fits-all bus fares that disadvantage 70 per cent of all bus users. Taxes are up and spending is up.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the term "sustainability" is sprinkled confetti-like through the document to give it a contemporary feel. That should please the left. But many of the policies are anything but sustainable. One searches in vain for a useful definition. The only attempt is this minimalist content-free piece on page 11 of the Shaping Canberra's Future document. It says:

Sustainability-economic, social and environmental sustainability-is about development that meets the needs of today's generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

What does that mean, Mr Deputy Speaker? Useless rhetoric like that, which is clearly not intended to convey any meaning at all, should have no place in an official document.

The one-price bus fare may appeal to Labor's socialist instincts, but it is not a public transport policy. Contrary to its intention, it will actually discourage some people from using public transport because short trip bus fares are now more expensive. Those people will use their cars instead, thus negating Labor's professed concern for the environment. The additional cost of Labor's single zone system will be about $8 million. That will be required to cover the money ACTION will lose from passenger income for short trips.

It is typical of Labor that it does not understand economic principles, one being that sometimes user-pays can lead to a more efficient and effective use of the community's scarce resources. Mr Deputy Speaker, reducing waste should be an important part of, and an important aim in service delivery. It is a lesson learned in many parts of the world, especially Eastern Europe, where command economies collapsed. Why did they? The main reason was that the prices of goods and services produced bore little or no relation to the cost of their production and provision. Subsidy and cost shifting ran rampant.

Here we have such discredited practices appearing in the ACT in 2002. Subsidising long bus trips across town may, in some cases, encourage people to overuse them. The bus service will cost more, and other services to the community will be foregone.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it just does not make any sense. This is a lazy budget, a reflex budget-a budget of deception. Labor can see that business activity and employment are on the way down, but it is incapable or unwilling to do anything about it. Labor still seems to believe in the good old socialist tradition that wealth and income come from taxes. In this budget it sees employment depending on the public sector, even though recent history proves that real and sustainable employment growth depends on a prosperous private sector.

Labor's fixation with the public sector is seen in over $32 million in new spending in the ACT public sector. This area, in fact, receives a bigger share of new initiatives than any other, belying the claim that health and education are the biggest winners in this budget. The full-year staff costs will blow out by some $20 million in future years. We might reflect on who is going to pay for that huge increase.

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