Page 254 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
What was going on in the real world during this period and not in the mind of the Chief Minister and former Treasurer? We know from the reports coming out of the Reserve Bank—and I can only assume that Treasury sees these reports and sends briefs of them to the former Treasurer—that the economic situation was deteriorating quite dramatically and quite rapidly. I think we all know that.
We struggled with it during the ACT election, where the global financial crisis was on pages 1, 2 and 3 and if we were lucky the Assembly was on pages 4, 5 and 6. You could not have been unaware of it. We were aware of it. We knew we had to have stronger surpluses. We committed to stronger surpluses. Our surpluses were better, were bigger than the government’s. And we knew that we had to constrain spending. We knew that we had to redirect money up, and we did that. And we knew that things were not as good as the Chief Minister was saying they were. But no, he persisted right up to the end in saying that everything was okay.
We know the reports coming out of the Reserve Bank. On 7 October, just before the election, just before some of these statements were made, the Reserve Bank put out a bulletin. I read it. I am sure the Chief Minister would have got a press release which said:
The recent deterioration in prospects for global growth, together with much more difficult market conditions even for creditworthy borrowers, now present the risk that demand and output could be significantly weaker than earlier than expected.
No. What did we have from the Chief Minister on 15 October, just a week later? He said, “Only a Labor government can deliver a commitment to manage the economy responsibly and deliver future budget surpluses and a commitment to helping business attract the skilled workers they need.” This guy is in fairyland.
Things have changed dramatically. Where was the Chief Minister when these changes were occurring? What does this mean for the ACT and where are we heading now? What we have is a deficit looming and what we have is a Treasurer who is not across her brief. We only have to look at the situation that she was left with and her answer, as again, we heard today. Again, Ms Gallagher in the City News:
Our surpluses have been fairly small—$74 million, going down to $50 million and, kind of, hovering around that in the out-years.
It is not hovering around that in the outyears. She goes on to say:
Now we have lost $30 million in GST revenue, a one per cent reduction cuts $15 million off our bottom line, and our share portfolio has been affected.
They are just fundamental facts. People know that these things occur. Yet we have this fantasy maintained that we are in a fundamentally sound position. Then we have got the comments from the Treasurer about how she will address this. She goes on to say:
From my short understanding with Treasury this seems to be what the whole budget is—it is all estimates and guessing and where things are going to fit to their best understanding at that point in time.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .