Page 1438 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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Economic mismanagement has contributed to the situation. It is not the only factor—there are plenty of other factors—but it has contributed to the situation and it will continue to contribute to the panicked response that we will be seeing in the next couple of years. The government would have known about the 18,000 empty desks some time ago.
The GFS predicts an accumulated deficit of $1,744 million. These are massive figures. That may not mean a lot to many people, but it will mean something to them as waiting lists increase, as schools close, as our roads get clogged and we do not see any upgrades, as we do not get the required numbers of police, and as taxes and charges are inevitably pushed up in order to try and cover for this government’s economic mismanagement. That is when the community will feel the effects of this government’s budgetary mismanagement. They will remember that it was the Stanhope government that put them in that situation.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for Planning) (11.16): Mr Speaker, I rise to support the Chief Minister’s amendment. The hypocrisy from the other side of the chamber on this issue is absolutely astounding. Who was it that introduced GGS and GFS measures into the budget? Who was it that chose to measure the performance of the budget on GGS? It was the Liberal Party in government. All of a sudden Mr Mulcahy and those opposite have decided that they do not like using GGS anymore because it does not suit them. It does not suit their political interests and it does not suit the argument they want to make to the community, so they have decided that GFS is better.
We all know that the Australian accounting standard is GGS. We all know also that the requirements and particular financial circumstances of the territory are quite different from many other jurisdictions. One of the reasons for that is land. Unlike every other jurisdiction in the country, because of the nature of the freehold system, the ACT maintains a significant land bank. Rating agencies have been prepared to accept that in respect of land revenue the circumstances in the ACT are different from other jurisdictions.
There is no doubt that over the next couple of years the accounting standards will move towards GFS. The government is conscious of that, and we will move consistent with the accounting standards. But the hypocrisy of those opposite is absolutely mind-blowing. Did we ever hear the Liberal Party in government assert that land revenues should not be taken into account in the budget process, in deciding whether or not the government’s bottom line was healthy? No. They always accounted for the land revenues.
Now we have this fantastic backflip by the Liberal Party. You always accounted for the land revenues and you always accounted for the returns on superannuation investments. You did so when you were in government, and when it suited your political objectives you cried about it. We never heard Kate Carnell say that the economic health of the territory was measured by the GFS. She always asserted the GGS figure. Mr Smyth was part of the cabinet that did that.
Apart from that hypocrisy, of course, there is the flip-flopping by the Liberal Party around the issue of school closures. Just this morning Mr Seselja flipped—perhaps he flopped—when he claimed that the opposition does not necessarily think it is a bad idea,
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