Page 1229 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 24 March 2009
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When going into a budget which we know will be in deficit going forward, I think it is critically important that we as community and we as an Assembly actually cut through the spin. We know what Katy’s argument is going to be when she delivers her budget in May. We know that; we can write the lines now. It will be this: it is not our fault; the problem is the global financial crisis and the problem is the commonwealth.
Ms Gallagher: That’s all rubbish, is it, Zed? Is it?
MR SESELJA: If I can finish. We are on the record as saying—and I will say it again just to make it clear for the Treasurer—that the slowing of the world economy will have an effect on the ACT. Commonwealth spending will have an effect on the ACT. All of these things play a part. But people did not elect the Labor Party so that they could say, “It’s not our fault. We’re not responsible.” There are plenty of things that this government is responsible for.
When we hear the cries that this budget deficit and this recession are not the fault of this government, first, we need to say that, yes, there are external factors that will play a part. But the question is: what are you doing in your backyard to try to protect the economy? What are you doing in terms of how you spend money? For every dollar you spend that is not targeted, that does not deliver the core services, that does not serve to stimulate the economy, that is money that cannot be given back to the community in tax cuts and cannot be provided in stimulus.
These are simply budgetary matters but we are not going to allow this government to simply blame external factors. Yes, the external factors are there. Yes, they will play a part. We all understand and acknowledge that.
Ms Gallagher: How much, Zed? How much do they play a part?
MR SESELJA: If we are to accept the logic of the Chief Minister, then nothing the ACT government does matters. We heard him on WIN news saying no decisions his government has taken have led to the budget being in deficit. It is an outlandish claim. This government has wasted money, and Mrs Dunne has gone through some of the litany and we will go through more of it. There are significant savings. Of course, when we proposed savings during the election campaign all we heard—
Ms Gallagher: Two hundred jobs gone.
MR SESELJA: That is not what Treasury said.
Ms Gallagher: Say that outside.
MR SESELJA: It is interesting that she likes to contradict the Treasury modelling. If the Treasury believed that there were job cuts as a result of those savings, there would have been money for redundancies. That has to be factored in. That would have been factored in but it was not because there were not any cuts and there were not any redundancies. They did not have money for redundancies.
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