Page 2773 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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talk about the government’s infrastructure plan. This is an infrastructure plan that was riddled with errors. In addition, it was pretty much a rehash of budgets past and current and pie-in-the-sky ideas that this government will never be held to account for. Where was the genuine mid-term strategic planning? It simply was not there.
It was all too easy for this government to just rebadge existing projects—most of them are running late, I might add—and then put in some plans for 10 years down the track which Jon Stanhope will never have to be held accountable for. It is a disgraceful document and is a real letdown. I think many people in Canberra were expecting much better. Of course, like so many other state Labor governments around the place, there simply is not a vision. There simply is not a plan for Canberra’s future for the taxpayers of Canberra.
There are many problems with this budget. I think Caroline Le Couteur spoke earlier about the lack of detail in this budget. That was clearly visible insofar as I put in a question on notice, question No 727, asking the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services to provide an operating statement and a balance sheet for the Capital Linen Service, the ACT Property Group and the Yarralumla Nursery. I also asked which ACT government agencies have contracts with the Capital Linen Service. I asked for the total revenue for each of the agencies and I also asked for a staff profile. They seemed like pretty reasonable things to request, I would have thought. Like with so many other questions that we put in, this is how the Chief Minister responded:
The ACT Government prepares its budgets on an outputs basis. Data at that level is published in the Budget Papers, along with budgeted financial statements for agencies. Similar information on actual performance is published in annual reports including audited financial statements. Certain figures you request are publicly available in the TAMS Annual Report or ACT Government Budget Papers. Data is not available in the form and at the level of disaggregation requested in other questions without diversion of significant resources from TAMS ongoing business that I am not prepared to authorize.
What this Chief Minister has said is that he does not want to provide the information; it is all too hard. What is this Chief Minister trying to hide? Is it really that unreasonable for the opposition to request an operating statement and a balance sheet for the Capital Linen Service? Is it really that unreasonable to ask for such documents from the ACT Property Group or the Yarralumla Nursery? Of course it is not. It just shows that this government is unwilling to be transparent and unwilling to cooperate with other legislators in this place.
Many times in this chamber I have spoken about the problems and the many opportunities that lie within ACTION for reform to ensure that the people of Canberra continue to get good value for money. The $100 million operation, of which $80 million or so comes from a subsidy, is simply not sustainable. That is not a viable way to run a government agency. The $20 million that we get from fare revenue is probably from people that are reluctantly catching ACTION buses. I think there are very few people in Canberra that are voluntarily hopping on an ACTION bus. (Second speaking period taken.) That is not to say that everyone is disgruntled, but I think many people do so because they have to. That is why the increase in bus fares that we are going to see from 1 July is simply unreasonable when you take into account the
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