Page 2443 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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But if you treat this whole situation like a company, if you treat the people of Canberra as taxpayers, as actual customers, as shareholders, as taxpayers and if you treat cabinet like a board of directors and then you have got advisers and then you have all the other facets of a decision-making process, do you think a big company that has revenue of around $3½ billion, like the ACT government does, would make a decision in the way this government is? Do you think a company like that would act as unprofessionally as this government is? Do you think a company like that, with revenue of around $3½ billion—and we have got some pretty big companies that have revenue of $3½ billion—would be treating their shareholders and their stakeholders with such contempt as this government is treating the taxpayers of Canberra and the Assembly, I might add? It seems to me this is all part of a pattern of how this government does business.
On numerous occasions in this place I have raised the issue of how this government have squandered the boom and not prepared for the bust, how some $1.6 billion in revenue that was not budgeted for has been spent, with nothing to show for it. As the revenue has boomed, what have we got to show for it? We have got delayed and abandoned infrastructure projects, closed schools, a health system in crisis, second-rate public services and now a public deficit.
Now that we have run out of the record revenue, has the government changed its tune? Has the government heeded the lessons of the past and current budget management woes? No. It continues now, even in times of deficit, to crash or crash through. It continues to spend money without debate, without consultation, without disclosure, without full disclosure.
This government is afraid of being accountable, because, were their policies in the public eye for all to see and scrutinise, those policies would be quickly discredited and abandoned. What we want is for us to see the information so that we can make an accurate decision.
Let us remember Mr Hanson’s quote of Mr Stanhope earlier: “Governments must be scrutinised. They must be accountable. That is a role of oppositions, and it is a role that is particularly necessary as governments become lazy, arrogant, aloof and accident prone.” This government has been particularly lazy. Look at the territory budget that takes no difficult decisions when the times demand them and has no sensible economic strategy informing it. Is the government arrogant? I think the contempt it has shown for this place and the community shows that.
What about aloof? Their record of not consulting or listening to the community’s view when they do consult is a constant complaint made of this government. And is this government accident prone? This one goes without saying. This government have accident after accident, and that is why we are concerned, when $100 million of taxpayers’ money is going to be spent, that it is spent properly. And that is why we want to see the information.
By Mr Stanhope’s own logic, we have a government that is particularly necessary to be scrutinised. Especially at a time when taxes, fees, rates, fares, charges and fines are
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