Page 1433 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
disability services since 2000-01. That is what we have done; we have more than double services in these areas. If Mr Mulcahy and the Liberal Party want to call that wasting money on a select few, I will bear that and I will accept that arrow that you fire this way in relation supporting children that are being abused, supporting the disabled and supporting the aged. We do not accept your interpretation that we are wasting money on a select few.
We are, as I have said and as is reflected in the four straight surpluses, committed to sound budget management. The most recent budget estimates, as published in the midyear review, do show the budget moving into deficit as revenue growth has slowed and expenses have increased. That, as we have explained time and again, reflects two main factors: a downward revision of conveyancing and land sales revenue, consistent with the slowdown of the property market, which has occurred everywhere in Australia, and the ACT is not at all unique; and, the most significant factor, an upwards revision of superannuation expenses following the latest review by the government’s actuary.
The actuary found that superannuation costs were higher than expected for several reasons, the most significant being a greater number of retirees claiming pensions instead of lump sums. We relied in the previous year in the development of the budget on the actuary’s then assessment of superannuation expenses. He revised them up significantly a year later. We are acting to restore the budget to surplus and we will be announcing our strategy in relation to that in the budget which will be presented on 6 June.
There is, of course, the more fundament issue of the level of expenditure that has existed since self-government. That is a debate which the community needs to have and which we need to have in this place as soon as members of the opposition can overcome some of the hysteria that they are generating about the real position of the ACT economy and the budget. All territory governments have been spending higher than the average on state-like services, every single one of us, from self-government to today. All the information is there. It is there for all to see. It is there for everyone to see. Every territory government has been spending far higher than the average on state-like services. The origins of that high expenditure are in the structures handed over to us at the time of self-government and the high expectations of services.
That is precisely why I established a strategic and functional review of the public sector and services. I did so in acknowledgment of that fact to make sure that we continue to meet service needs in priority areas and that we do not pass on unsustainable structures to future generations. That is what each successive government has done to date. Each has continued and maintained a range of structures which are unsustainable and which, at the end of the day, will be unfair to our children and to our grandchildren as they seek to provide and deliver quality services to the people of the ACT. The government has moved to bring the budget back and to provide that capacity to sustain service and meet emerging needs.
A long-term approach is required. We have seen already in the debate here today and we have seen it in the last couple of weeks in question time that the willingness or the capacity of members of the Liberal Party in this place, the opposition, to enter into a debate around the long term has been shown to be beyond them. They are interested in the electoral cycle, as every previous government and opposition has been, but this is about the longer term. It is not about the next election. It is in your interests, of course,
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .