Page 1599 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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and temporary. As has been said over the last couple of days and restated by Mr Stefaniak today, contrary to the government's statements, the surplus for 2007-08 is a mere $13.5 million. In the following three years the budget turns back into deficits of $57 million, $55 million and then $29 million. These accumulated deficits add to more than $140 million, easily eclipsing the small surplus for the coming year.
The government claim they will generate a $103 million surplus for 2007-08, with more surpluses to come in future years. It has almost got the theme of “trust us and re-elect us and we will take care of things”. But this claim rests on including expected gains in superannuation in the government’s bottom line. This money belongs to public sector superannuants, not to the government. It is not available for spending on government services. I have stated already and will continue to state that this is money that cannot be used to fix health, roads or the education system. It would be dishonest for any business to count the superannuation assets of its employees in its profits. For example, it is not money that they could use to purchase stock, pay debts or the like.
Indeed, as has been pointed out and revealed today, the Labor Party’s 2001 election policies recognised exactly that. Fact sheet No 10 on financial integrity stated that Labor would “ensure that budgets and financial reports clearly show the operating performance of the territory, net of the results of invested superannuation cash reserves”. It took until today at question time for the Chief Minister to start to acknowledge that that condition is there in Labor policy and, in fact, he has sidestepped presenting the performance of his government in next year’s budget on those terms at every possible opportunity since the budget was handed down. Of course, they have not followed through on this promise now that they are in government, but it seems that different rules apply when Labor comes to power. We have seen that so often federally and, of course, we are seeing it now at the territory level.
The fact of the matter is that the ACT government has continued to grow and has continued to spend recklessly. Since coming to power in 2001, the Stanhope Labor government has increased spending by 46 per cent, or $910 million, to a massive $2,867 million in 2006-07. In the same period the government has increased its ravenous appetite for funds, increasing its revenue by 43 per cent, or $851 million, to a massive $2,838 million in 2006-07. This trend, regrettably, shows no sign of abating.
The question has to be: where does the money go? Of course, it goes into an expanding public sector employment workforce. Since the government came to power, the employment costs for the public service have risen by 41 per cent, or $578 million, to $1,372 million in 2006-07. In 2007-08, the government’s employment costs are budgeted to rise by a further 6.2 per cent and the size of the public service is budgeted to rise by an equivalent of 149 full-time staff. That makes a mockery of the government’s plans to achieve efficiencies by reshaping the bureaucracy.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without referring to the big ticket item of health. As has been discussed in this place in the last couple of days, the most recent report of the AIHW stated that administrative costs for ACT public hospitals were 26 per cent higher than the national average. Contrary to the statements made today by Mr Stanhope that the Liberals want to cut health by $61 million, what he has failed to grasp, and I suspect he has never got round to reading the report, is that the report
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