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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2357 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

shortage of school counsellors, but there is actually no funding for new counsellors and no forward funding has been signalled.

I must ask: why is this government committed to maintaining and repeating the promises of the old government? The previous government promised free school buses and laptops for teachers. The ALP proudly killed off the free school bus scheme, but kept and implemented the laptops for teachers promise. Why not combine the money taken from the free school bus scheme, the laptops and the reviews into counsellors and education and use this pool of money to address education problems by trying to end the teacher shortage through improving the development of teachers, counsellors and support staff?

Mr Deputy Speaker, I have mentioned that each of the members of this government got something for their pet project in this year's budget. This is also shown by what was not in this year's budget. The lack of support for women repeats mistakes of not only the past government but also the federal government. This budget acknowledges women only if they are sick, old or pregnant or, for the first time, good at sport. In this year's budget there is no money to implement the recommendation of Mr Stanhope's women and violence inquiry or the Assembly's status of women inquiry.

In the sporting sector, there is funding for home-grown champion women's sporting teams. I am quite happy to see the provision of $100,000 for the Capitals and $40,000 each for the Eclipse and the Strikers. This provision of $180,000 is to be commended, but let us compare it with the $250,000 for the North Melbourne AFL team, on top of the $400,000 in subsidies for Manuka Oval. This budget definitely does show where the ALP's priorities are at.

With the change of government came some hope for the ACT public service. Members of the ACT public service know that they are long overdue for a pay rise and expect the Labor government to deliver, but it is not doing so in this budget. There is money for an upgrade of a payroll system and a new human resource management system, but no funding for the long overdue public service pay rise. Excuse my cynicism, but the government's expenditure review committee actually sounds like a euphemism for "Quinlan razor gang". We heard in the lead-up to this budget that the Treasurer was looking for 2 per cent cuts across-the-board; hence, this committee worries me greatly. I wonder whether it will be job cuts that will feed a pay rise, because I do not see such funding anywhere else.

The Australian Democrats welcome the extra funding and initiatives in health, particularly preventive measures in mental health for young people and the acknowledgment of problems in psycho-geriatric care. I acknowledge the attempt to address the problems of respite care, but my concern is that it may not be enough in the longer term. But we will continue to monitor this pressing problem.

The Australian Democrats look forward to the work of the Office of Sustainability. This office does have wonderful potential and I hope that the right mix of staff expertise and enthusiasm will be found to make it a success. The Office of Sustainability could provide for the ACT government to embrace triple bottom line reporting, which recognises economic, social and environment benchmarks in accounting. I look forward to the next budget, which I hope will include triple bottom line accounting in its delivery.

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