Page 654 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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MR STEFANIAK: In April last year the Chief Minister was surprised to find that there were 2,500 extra public servants. He did not really know where they came from. Mr Stanhope, it is somewhat pleasing to see that you are at least trying to rein that back, but how on earth did you let that happen in the first place? How on earth would any responsible government let that happen? Yes, you do need sometimes to increase the number of public servants you have in key areas such as police, emergency services, nursing and perhaps education, but an increase of 2,500, from 15,500 to 18,000, is a very significant increase. That is a 16 per cent increase. That is rank incompetence.
Mr Stanhope: How much are you going to cut disability by?
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Stefaniak has the floor, as you did some time ago, Chief Minister.
MR STEFANIAK: I note in the time available that the Chief Minister is saying, “We have revolutionised; we are no longer dependent on land sales.” I seem to recall a figure of about $900 million of additional revenue which the government actually got but did not expect from GST revenue, a luxury the previous government did not have, plus stamp duty. Where did that stamp duty come from? Quite a bit of that was from land sales. So, Mr Stanhope, do not give me that nonsense.
Mr Mulcahy has carefully dissected the figures for this midyear review and he has shown that it is not the good news that you like to pretend that it is. He has given figures which are relevant and explained the reduced levels of deficit that we are now seeing as being due to increases in taxes and superannuation gains rather than better spending practices.
In fact, what did the government say when they got these figures in the midterm review? What did they say when they looked at the figures and found that some 85 per cent of the decrease in this year’s deficit was due to higher taxes and projected gains in superannuation assets? What did they say in relation to that? Did they tell the public? Were they actually honest with the public and the people of Canberra? Did they put out a press release saying, “We are reducing the deficit by raising taxes, and we also got lucky this year because we got very good returns on our superannuation assets”? Did they tell that to the public? Of course not.
Instead, they sent out a media release patting themselves on the back. They said, “The fact that the ACT budget remains on track demonstrates the responsible financial management of the Stanhope Labor government.” They went on to say, “It would have been irresponsible for the ACT Labor government to take the easy political route and allow the territory budget to grow out of control into the future.” What on earth did they think they were doing in the few years before then? Where did these 2,500 extra public servants come from?
In that press release about the ACT budget being on track is there any mention at all of the increase in taxes? No. It says that figures released by Treasury show the budget recorded a net operating surplus of $47 million in the year to December 2006, that it remains on track for a final outcome deficit of around $42 million, and that the
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