Page 1882 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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Ms Gallagher: Partial silence.
MR SPEAKER: Almost largely silence, and I expect you to show similar courtesy to Mr Seselja, and to Ms Hunter when she speaks. Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Chief Minister for displaying his sensitivity on this point. Just as revenue and taxes have increased, expenses will grow to $4.395 billion under this budget. Until 2003-04, the expenditure and revenue graphs remained broadly in line. However, in 2008-09, those figures dramatically diverged and they are projected to move further apart as time goes by.
The rivers of revenue, the flood of finance, all trickle dry when you cannot control your spending. This is simply unsustainable. Growth in expenditure cannot continue to outstrip growth in revenue. Any kitchen table budget will show that continuing to spend more money than you receive will end in disaster. It is not a prediction or projection; it is a mathematical certainty.
So where has all this money come from and where has it all gone? It comes from property taxes, from GST, from a massive increase in rates and charges since Labor took power, and it has been wasted ever since. Since ACT Labor was first elected in 2001, taxation per capita has risen from $1,794 to $3,126.
As an example of this increase, an example that will ring true in many household budgets, we have conducted historical research into the rates bill that this government levies on householders in the ACT. Just to provide a few examples since 2001-02, rates have increased in Holder by 78 per cent, in Amaroo by 71 per cent, in Conder by 76.3 per cent and in Evatt by around 80 per cent. Across this territory, in every family home, they are the sorts of increases we have seen in the last nine years, with even more above-inflation rises to be levied again in this budget.
But in spite of this growth, ACT Labor have blown the budget again. ACT Labor spent more than they made again. We are not getting the services we paid for again. We are paying more, waiting longer and getting less. This is a budget that delivers a very small bang for very big bucks. And make no mistake: it is because of the policies and practices of this government that we get such poor results from such prodigious revenues.
Given the strong economy in the ACT and nationally, the ACT government budget should be in good shape. The streets should be paved with gold and we should all be enjoying platinum services. But we are not.
It is vital to remember that when we look at this budget we are not just looking at the document presented by the Treasurer only two days ago. We are looking at the story of this government over the last nine years, and it is a story of waste—wasted money, wasted time, wasted opportunity. Nine years of waste; nine years of ACT Labor.
The reality of this statement can be seen not only in the rows and columns of numbers in the budget papers but in the financial pain and frustration with services being felt in
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