Page 1647 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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amount of $140,000 for the replacement of multibay parking meters—no doubt a worthy project some would think. But are they initiatives when you are just funding existing projects or existing services in this way?
This latest Stanhope budget is full of fairy dust, sprinkling largesse far and wide across the ACT as the Stanhope government seeks to build favour with the electorate and dispel the spirit of mean-spiritedness that Labor so fears. There is no coherent strategy with these spending proposals. Indeed, not only is there no strategy underpinning these proposals; a number of the capital works proposals are either back flips—and we know why they are back flips, because the government fears being kicked out of the benches in October—on previous announcements or re-announcements of projects.
For example, my favourite is the re-announcement of the search for a permanent site for Floriade—first announced when? It was first announced in a Humphries budget in 2000-01, and we are still waiting—yes, eight years later. Then there is the announcement of the extension to Cohen Street in Belconnen, first announced in the 2004-05 budget, and, of course, a particular concern of yours, Mr Deputy Speaker, the back flip on Tharwa bridge; but we will have to wait till 2010 for that one.
Then there is the overall quantum of the long-overdue infrastructure budget from the Stanhope government. We hear the claims from the Chief Minister that his latest budget will fund spending of $1 billion over a five-year capital works program. The reality is that this program simply represents what should have been the case in any event and it simply makes up for the inability of the Stanhope government to put in place any effective capital works program in earlier years.
We can see the numbers: $353 million in 2006-07; $314 million in 2005-06; $247 million in 2004-05 and $167 million in 2003-04. That is proposed expenditure of almost $1 billion. It is almost as if the government was blinded by the ACT prison project and the Gungahlin Drive extension project.
If we look at the capital budget for health, for example—and at least the Minister for Health has the decency to be in the chamber, unlike the Chief Minister, who never sits through the budget debates—we have $300 million over the next five years. But if we look back we find an average health budget of only $24 million. Between 2004-05 and 2007-08 we see an average of $24 million followed by a dramatic jump for this year of $90 million in 2008-09. Why did it take so long if it was so important? Because, as always, when the government get caught out, they react. Instead of actually planning for the future, they are caught up in their own mismanagement of the budget.
If we look at the capital works budget for education we see a relatively low level of capital works spending prior to the 2006-07 budget—again followed by a substantial jump to the spending levels we now see in education. So again: no plan, ignore the problem and then huge boosts to catch up at a much more expensive rate. This latest capital works budget is simply making up for the failure of the Stanhope government to develop a reasonable and ongoing capital works budget over the past six or seven years, let alone delivering it. We know from the delivery rates that they are anywhere
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