Page 1943 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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seems that Labor have not been able to manage money, and it has happened again here. Labor are now adopting the talk of fiscal probity. But can we believe them? The indications are that we cannot. It has already been remarked that there is far too much pillaging of business, ratepayers and indeed every section of the community through revenue raising and still too little done by way of cutting the government’s spending.
The big-ticket extravaganzas like the prison and the arboretum—hopefully you have killed off the bus lane—have certainly not been killed off. No way. One has been slowed and one is on hold. This tells us that nothing really has changed and that it is only the government’s doublespeak propaganda machine that is to the fore. Now the Chief Minister is talking of fiscal responsibility. Hence the release from his office warning us not to be complacent about the trumpeted dramatic turnaround which, as we have seen, is no real turnaround at all. This was like Dracula warning about impending blood shortages at the blood bank. It should be treated with scepticism.
Standard and Poor’s has warned the government that it needed to take immediate action to ensure the territory’s AAA rating but it has since stated that it was looking for more stringent measures. It is also anyone’s guess how rubbery the government’s figures are. The Canberra Times notes today that there is confusion about public service numbers in the budget. Agency employment tables in the budget show a total increase in staff from 2005-06 to 2006-07, not the projected 500 staff cuts the budget was supposed to be achieving. So what we actually find is that staff numbers rise from 15,354 in 2005-06 to 15,857 in 2006-07. Staff numbers are up in shared services, from 303 to 919, I would imagine as a result of the restructuring; in Justice and Community Safety from 721 to 1,382; and in Territory and Municipal Services from 1,018 to 1,185. In the already strapped Housing ACT, the $33 million projected savings over the three years would take an absolute miracle to achieve. The estimates in health also look significantly understated. The shared services model the government is embracing-at least on the Western Australian experience of it-would cost us more money, not save money.
The true picture of this government is of a spendthrift administration that has not delivered better services. What we have instead is a government that aspires to make a mark in the annals of history with dubious firsts-a sort of Guinness Book of Records approach to government. It is truly the Stanhope government which has caviar tastes, unable to distinguish what is necessary and what is discretionary. So we will continue to see money wasted on projects of dubious or no value.
This Chief Minister has presided over this mess. He now wants to be seen as a firm but responsible leader. But the sheer extravagance of the projects and the preoccupations of this administration are reminiscent of the aristocratic ways of Prime Minister Paul Keating just before his fall. This is a government which, like the Bourbon kings of France—remember Louis XVI—has “learnt nothing and forgotten nothing”.
What we have to remember is that the ACT is not in this situation just because it has a narrow tax base. It is not in this situation because we as the community want too much. It is in this situation fundamentally because of the Stanhope government’s own irresponsible waste and truly phenomenal mismanagement. This is not the budget we had to have. This budget was not preordained. It was not necessary. It has only become
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