Page 3851 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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not do this in a way that was going to engage the community. Most particularly, he tried to shut down debate in this place—a place of last resort for the citizens who use the Griffith library and who care about the ACT library system.
An incident having occurred in the gallery—
MR SPEAKER: Order! We also have to maintain order in the gallery. I call Mr Barr.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Industrial Relations) (12.19): I rise in defence of my colleague Minister Hargreaves. I have been interested in observing the debate this morning that has raised a number of broader structural issues about the ACT overall. I acknowledge a lot of what Dr Foskey had to say in relation to government ministers often having to defend very difficult decisions and I can speak from personal experience in relation to a number of those issues in many of my portfolios.
I think, though, that we need to take a step back and have a look at the context of the financial position that the territory is in. I have observed in my six months in this place that those opposite regularly make observations about an alleged lack of financial management. One of the things that struck me in the six months I have been here is that every attempt to address some of the major structural issues that this territory confronts around the asset base that we inherited from the commonwealth, our limited tax base, the fact that we are not riding on the back of a resources boom like some other states and territories are—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order!
Mr Pratt: What about GST?
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Pratt!
MR BARR: This jurisdiction has, and I think always will, suffer a comparative disadvantage. We get some adjustment from the Commonwealth Grants Commission, but I think this is a reality that governments of all persuasions throughout the history of self-government have had to face up to. One of the reasons we were given self-government was that the level of resources, services and infrastructure that was provided by the commonwealth to the people of Canberra up until the point of self-government was significant. In comparison to other jurisdictions, the level of resources in the territory and the level of government services that are required or expected are considerably higher. That has presented challenges for governments for 17 years.
On being elected in 2001, the Stanhope government sought to address a number of areas where there were clear gaps in service provision that needed to be addressed. As the Chief Minister has indicated, there were possibly times when we attempted to try to fix significant social problems in the city and that we spent too much money. We probably did.
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