Page 3338 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 20 August 2008
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We know that interest rate changes and impacts associated with a reduction in spending in the ACT by the commonwealth government have the potential to impact on the ACT economy, so we have worked hard to minimise the risks to the budget. And we have been carefully managing our own budget to ensure that we have the surpluses into the future. We are balancing the books and implementing long-term, fully-funded initiatives for a better future for all Canberrans.
This is in stark contrast, of course, to the opposition, whose election policy commitments to date would send the ACT back into a deep deficit for the whole of the next term of government. We are still three weeks away from the caretaker period and eight weeks from the election, yet the Liberals have already made spending promises amounting to half a billion dollars between now and 20011-12, along with promises to cut revenue amounting to more than a third of a billion dollars—a hit to the budget bottom line over the term of the government that adds up to more than $800 million.
The 2008-09 budget forecast surpluses over that period are forecast at $243 million. The total recurrent impact of the Liberal Party’s promises to date would be $97.3 million for this financial year alone, obliterating the healthy $84.9 million surplus and sending the territory into deficit for the first time since the Liberals were last in office. Based on the policies on their website, the cost of the Liberals’ commitments to date would reduce the current budget surplus by more than 82 per cent in the space of just four months.
Having spent the last four years fighting amongst themselves, the Liberals are now engaged in this populist, kneejerk policy on the run that can never be delivered upon, for the simple reason that it would send the territory broke. I think we have all seen, particularly in the last couple of days, that the Liberal Party will say and do anything to get elected.
The question we must now ask is: what promises will the Liberals get rid of if they form government after the election? The GP clinics? The smaller class sizes? The 100 extra acute hospital beds? The tax cuts? These are promises that are obviously never meant to be kept—promises that cannot in fact be kept without sending the territory spiralling into a debt from which it would struggle to recover.
We have had it confirmed this morning and yesterday in this chamber that the Liberals cannot be trusted to manage the territory’s finances responsibly. The Liberal record in government was successive deficits compared to Labor’s unbroken record of surpluses. We have taken the hard decisions to put our budget on a sustainable footing for the future. The opposition have made many of those decisions in order to seek their own political gain, but when it comes to spending the results of those decisions, they are very happy to spend it, and then more.
We have certainly been documenting all of those promises over the past four years. As we can see, Mr Smyth’s promises in health alone would eat up an extra $97 million recurrent a year. So the surplus has gone—it has gone in four months—and the territory will be plunged into deficit if they keep all the election commitments they have already announced. But, as we know, they will not be able to do that. They
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