Page 1459 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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MR SMYTH: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Treasurer, why has the ACT government’s budget strategy failed so badly, and will you keep your fingers crossed in the hope that it will recover?
MR STANHOPE: I do not concede that it has deteriorated in the way the Leader of the Opposition claims—a deterioration of $390 million in the space of four months. I do need to respond to the suggestion that “oh well, the budget position is actually improving over this financial year, but the government can’t claim any credit for that, of course”. The budget position is deteriorating: “Oh, it’s all your fault!” As soon as it improves, it has nothing to do with the government. If it is perceptually getting worse, or if it is in reality getting worse, that is all the government’s fault.
Mr Pratt: Yeah!
MR STANHOPE: Mr Pratt concurs. We all know, Mr Pratt, that that is the way the argument runs, but it is good for the record to note that Mr Pratt affirms what each of us know to be the truth. But it is, of course, of concern that we have the shadow Treasurer there, gesticulating wildly and saying, “It’s all your fault,” when the numbers are perhaps going west, but if the numbers turn around and begin to go east, saying, “You can’t claim any credit for that. It’s got nothing to do with you.” But, if they’re going west it has everything to do with us. “It is not about the inherent volatility. It’s not about the uncertainties relating to land sales. It’s not about the serendipitous nature of superannuation receipts. It’s all your fault.” The way they run this argument is: “It’s your fault when the numbers go west, and, of course, it’s not your responsibility when they travel or track in the opposite direction.”
The fact remains, in the context of the hysteria that the Liberal Party has generated around our budget position—“it’s getting worse, it’s crashing, it’s appalling”—that in this year, the year of the focus of the Leader of the Opposition’s question, the position is improving and has improved quite dramatically, from an anticipated $91 million deficit, which through a conscious decision we extended out to about $110 million in relation to decisions that we took. Now it has moved from $110 million, in the terms of the midyear review, to $37 million.
In the context of the wild allegations, the hysteria, the mad rhetoric, the fabricated allegations around $390 million deficits, the way in which the budget is currently performing puts the lie to this mad suggestion that it is heading at a million miles an hour in the opposite direction, because it is, quite flatly and bluntly, not; it is moving against the direction that you three of hysteria are seeking to send it. In the context of oppositions talking down budgets and talking down economies and talking down a jurisdiction, you are doing a fine job, and there is something there for you to reflect on—a mad, wild allegation, completely without foundation
Mr Smyth: Something in your management to reflect on.
MR STANHOPE: No—a mad, wild allegation, completely without foundation or substance, that the ACT’s budget position has moved from an anticipated deficit of $16 million to an anticipated deficit of $390 million, is reckless in the extreme, is reckless in the context of the wellbeing and the reputation of the territory as a whole and
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