Page 3028 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
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This is a budget that clearly ignores the reality of the times and is in line with the standard Stanhope-Gallagher economic plan: don’t do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Remember how well that worked with the Gungahlin Drive extension? We have 20 million reasons to remember that one. There is no plan. We have had the Treasurer herself articulate when she received the news from Mr Rudd that we would be receiving $183 million less in GST revenue that she would have to tweak this black hole in the budget. I quote from Minister Katy Gallagher on 14 May 2009:
So our plan remains the same but we’re certainly going to have to tweak it based on what we saw last night.
We need look no further to find blame than to the Stanhope-Gallagher government, because they have failed to prepare the territory and they have irresponsibly squandered the good times.
I would also like to put on the record my abhorrence of the way this government abuses process. My experience over the past six months of being in this place has been that he who screams loudest gets heard. There is no transparency, no consistency between ministers and convention is rarely adhered to. Members of this government feel it is beneath them to listen to constituents. 1 have had a number of people say to me that they cannot even get someone to answer the phone in some ministers’ offices. The opposition seems to be the last resort for some in the community. All trust has been lost when it comes to the Chief Minister and his cabinet.
I have had occasion in recent months to question the content of briefs facilitated with departmental officials by the minister. I was told that I was being given a full brief on a particular issue by departmental officials but, in reality, I was in receipt of a Clayton’s brief, the brief you get when they do not want you to know the real story. It is also apparent that there is no whole-of-government approach to anything and much buck passing between the ministers themselves when it comes to the hard issues. This approach to accountability has left me sceptical and wary of this government. It has left me expecting the worst kind of behaviour from ministers. I now find myself having to read between the lines whenever I receive communication from a member of this government. The obfuscation and prevarication tactics and standards that are set by the Chief Minister and faithfully followed by his colleagues are also applied to the budget.
I think we must all remember how this government has operated in the past as a majority government. It thinks it can still bully its way in a similar fashion. We must remember the budget of 2006 and the secretive Costello review which provided the catalyst for some monumental changes to the operating budget of all agencies in the ACT. That catastrophic year apparently saw savings of $100 million. We now are faced with the challenge of finding four times as much in savings. As stated by our shadow Treasurer, Mr Smyth, this will require an entire rewrite of the ACT budget. There is a huge challenge facing this government in the years leading up to the next likely surplus budget. The uncertainty of not knowing where the axe will fall and the haphazard and secretive way in which this government goes about its business is its legacy to the people of the ACT.
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