Page 3020 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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while ending wasteful practices and pricing environmental externalities so as to minimise the inefficient use of resources. Where are the measures to maximise resource efficiency while safeguarding existing profit margins against rising costs and where is the innovative thinking within this budget?
This budget includes a significant capital works program which will go towards addressing underspending over the last decade, while insulating parts of the Canberra economy from international pressures. However, in recognising that capital works are needed, there is still concern that the economic weight in this budget relies too heavily on building as infrastructure, and the real value of the borrowings required for these projects may not be realised.
It is unclear whether the people of the ACT are receiving infrastructure that will serve them for the next decade and beyond. Infrastructure spending needs to deliver medium and long-term social and environmental benefits to the community, not just short-term economic stimulus. We need to not only be supporting jobs but creating them. Where is the vision to create a new sustainable workforce—a workforce that has a significant multiplier effect in the economy as a whole, through direct jobs created by manufacturing in such industries as solar technology to indirect jobs in associated industries that supply intermediate goods for building retrofits? The solution for building this new economy can only be realised through a genuinely serious reallocation of funding to our trade training centres which provide the seminal training that is needed to build new skill sets for jobs in green sectors.
Recommendation 18 of the estimates committee report advocates that the ACT government immediately commence development of a policy framework that will provide encouragement for the growth of the private sector in the ACT. This is an excellent opportunity for the government to begin work on creating a sustainable workforce and the green jobs that I have been talking about.
The ACT government has projected negative fiscal balances, which is largely due to the spending on capital for which the government will be borrowing nearly $540 million over the next four years. I acknowledge that the government has sought to minimise its external borrowings but we are concerned that the borrowings are the most expensive part of any deficit, incurring real community burdens through the interest payments required. For such a high-value item, we need to be able to reassure Canberrans that these borrowings will deliver triple-bottom-line returns back to the community.
There is an absence of saving measures for the coming year, which is attributed to the global economic recession, and that means any savings this year would only worsen the initial shock of this recession. However, the government has stated its intention to find savings of approximately $300 million through efficiency improvements. These efficiency dividends which will be introduced in 2010-11 are of significant concern to the Greens, as the process of consultation, both within the departments and the community, must be conducted with a genuine desire to find actual efficiencies and not merely the cutting of staff and services.
The Greens will also be watching closely the way in which the government intends to provide adequate services to the community in these difficult financial times. This
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