Page 2659 - Week 08 - Thursday, 24 August 2006
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MR STANHOPE: They are not. That is something of a furphy. Indeed, as we now know, population growth in the ACT is higher than population growth in New South Wales for the first time for a couple of years. I do not want to belabour the point, but it does need to be responded to. I do not accept the notion now being put around very effectively by the Prime Minister, to disguise his previous utterances in relation to interest rates rises, that in some way the states and territories are to blame.
The commonwealth does not have a housing policy. It does not have a housing minister any more. There used to be one. It is some reflection of the significance or seriousness with which the commonwealth currently views the issue of housing that a government or a jurisdiction that used to proudly employ a minister for housing no longer has one, not even in a subsidiary or secondary ministerial role. Housing is a very moot and current issue. I have established a task force. I do not walk away from the essential point that housing is a major issue.
I think we do need to better understand the levers, but it is simplistic to say it is interest rates, it is simplistic to say it is land supply and it is simplistic to say it is stamp duties, it is simplistic simply to point at each of these variables, and suggest that if only we addressed land supply we would have addressed affordability or if only we had reduced stamp duty we would have addressed affordability. The issue is very complex and I do not think we do have as full an understanding as we require of it. I am seeking a better understanding of the levers in the territory that we might tug and push in relation to enhancing affordability.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.8—Shared Services Centre, $13,092,000 (net cost of outputs) and $10,225,000 (capital injection), totalling $23,317,000.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (4.24): There has been a deal of discussion through the estimates process and, I believe, in questions in this place in relation to the Shared Services Centre and, indeed, the appropriation that is spelt out here as part of the ACT government’s plans for the new centre, including its ongoing funding of InTACT. It marks something of an ambitious new venture for this government, one that it hopes will assist in reining in the massive blow-out in costs since 2001 which seems only now to be being addressed in a serious way.
Before examining how this money is to be spent, let us remember that this cost-saving measure may be something of a gamble and may not have been necessary in the first place if there had been different approaches to management of the ACT budget. We have had over a long period bonanza windfall gains from land sales, stamp duty and the GST, resulting in the massive growth in public sector employment which is central to the problems that the ACT budget now faces. Constantly we are told that the issue is the expectation of taxpayers in terms of additional services, but I would contend that, with almost half of every dollar going out the door on wages and superannuation, it is a matter of having too many people being recruited by the territory and then suddenly realising what the impact will be.
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