Page 1762 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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we have done, how we have spent, the expectations we have nurtured, the excuses we have made.
The truth is not always comfortable. Many of us in this chamber, on both sides of the room, have been part of governments that have been complicit in this history. It is right that we feel somewhat discomfited.
The truth is, since self-government ACT governments have consistently spent more, across the board, on services than governments in the rest of the country.
And we have done so even though on the face of it our needs ought to have been lower.
We are more affluent, more highly educated, younger and healthier than the rest of the nation. Yet our expenditure on state services has been roughly 20 per cent above the national average.
And how have we funded this expenditure? Not by charging higher taxes, or sending bigger rates bills. Not by striking oil or discovering gold.
We did it, in the early years of self-government, by relying on transitional handouts from the commonwealth. More recently, we have done it by selling off the land under our feet. Sometimes, even these strategies have not been sufficient, and we have funded our higher levels of expenditure through wafer-thin surpluses, or deficits.
We have been living beyond our means.
Today, we start a process that will bring down our unit costs in health, without compromising our great outcomes. We embark on a journey that will consolidate our schools system and make it the first choice of Canberra families. We begin to align taxes and fees so that they better reflect the real costs of delivering services.
Mr Speaker, there is no crisis. Outside this building, the people of Canberra are going about their business—and their business is booming.
The economy is strong—and growing. We have virtually full employment—indeed, our businesses tell us that the biggest impediment to even faster, even greater, growth is that their prospects are outstripping the supply of labour.
State final demand is forecast to grow at three per cent in 2006-07 and 4.75 per cent over the forward estimates. Employment growth is forecast at 0.75 per cent in the budget year.
The forecast for the housing market—an important part of our economy—is for modest growth, with residential property turnover returning to long-run average levels.
There is no crisis on the streets and in the suburbs of Canberra. But there will be one—next decade, or in the decade after that—if we do not act today.
It will be a crisis that will seriously affect the capacity of future governments to deliver the sorts of services that Canberrans expect and deserve: the best health system, the best
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