Page 2321 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005
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about revitalising our city, but we do not reflect it in terms of a tax or an industrial relations regime.
Mr Speaker, the Treasurer is fairly dismissive of the sentiment contained in our dissenting report. It was not something that was lightly reached, but there is an abiding theme there, and it is the point that I think he misses in his criticism of overspending. I hold the view of Dr Foskey, who is not here at the moment, in the deliberations of the committee when it was in closed session. I like the tradition and respect the tradition that they are not necessarily for public airing but I will say that Ms Porter holds the view that was enunciated by the Treasurer—he may have provided that view—and I do no think they get the point.
The point is that we are not saying that the government is spending money that has not been authorised for expenditure or has not been appropriated. Our concern is with the constant trend of this territory government to spend more than it budgets for. It has been saved by the federal government’s GST. I know that the Treasurer is very critical of the federal Treasurer and he calls me a right wing slavish follower of Mr Costello. I enjoy that description; it is quite entertaining. But the Treasurer does not have the honesty to admit that, due to his high-spending colleagues, he simply cannot live within the budget framework that he—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Withdraw that, Mr Mulcahy.
MR MULCAHY: Which remark?
MR SPEAKER: You said that the Treasurer did not have to honesty to do something.
MR MULCAHY: I am sorry. I withdraw that remark, Mr Speaker. The Treasurer did not have the capability, I suggest, to admit that, in fact, his problem is his high-spending colleagues from the left, who constantly present him with a problem as to his capacity to live within the budget that he frames each year. Fortunately, thanks to the tax system that this country adopted several years ago, we are being saved. But what worries me, Mr Speaker, is that that is also a reflection of a buoyant economy and, if we have a softening in that economy and there is no anticipation of it by the territory government, the $91 million under the system of presentation, or $350 million if you apply the GFS method, is going to be a bigger problem in years to come.
I was with some people yesterday who were in disbelief of the claim that all will be well next year. I will be pleased to stand up here next year, and say; “Gosh, my predictions were pessimistic and the Treasurer was right. We are bouncing back into the black and things are going well in the ACT.” But I suspect that the Treasury forecast will not be fulfilled and I suspect that the Treasurer himself is unlikely to genuinely believe that all will be well at the end of the next budget cycle.
We will get to the detail as time proceeds over the coming days, but the estimates process was a revelation in many respects. I know that some were critical of lines of inquiry that we sought to pursue but I believe, as you acknowledged, Mr Speaker, when you appeared before the committee, that we should vigorously pursue inquiry through the estimates process. It should not be simply a rubber stamp. I make no apologies for
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