Page 1793 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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is very distinct moderation in that revenue growth. Indeed, the large revenue growth in this budget is around our accelerated land supply target, the tax dividend from land.
What are the opposition suggesting—that we should not put out land to the market to deal with the demand that we are seeing in the community?
Mr Smyth: You are struggling, aren’t you?
MS GALLAGHER: No. It is an obvious response to the criticism that the opposition have. They criticise more revenue in the budget. They criticise the expenditure. They criticise the bottom line. But what you see is, with the additional revenue of $192 million, expenditure increases only by $75 million. We improve our bottom line by $100 million and we return to surplus on time and we do so in a way that manages the costs to individual households.
Through this budget we are providing more affordable housing options. We are providing more social housing. We are providing very significant increases for people with a disability, whether it be in schools or in the community. The concessions initiative alone would be the single biggest concessions increase since self-government. We are providing more out-of-home care, youth justice and care and protection services. We are improving energy and water efficiency for low income and disadvantaged households.
We are also able to deliver more acute health services, more surgery, more cancer services, more mental health services, more ambulance staff and more ambulances around the town, more investment in municipal services and additional expenditure in a very significant infrastructure spend. This is what we are able to achieve with a very modest spend in this budget, a modest, targeted, responsible spend.
I think those who have commented on it, who have called it responsible, fair and disciplined, are correct. That is exactly what this budget is. It is a budget delivered by a government that are focused on delivering services to the community at a time when we manage and improve our efficiency in our own time and that we return the budget to surplus in 2013-14.
There are, of course, critics of the budget. As I have said a number of times, the budget will not be everything to everybody. But I think overall the people who understand budgets, who understand the different and competing pressures that the government faced, believe that this budget was the right one for the times that we are facing at this point.
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary, Mr Hargreaves?
MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Not wanting to pre-empt any supplementary Ms Porter might want to ask, my supplementary to the Treasurer is: what other responses has the community made in relation to the budget?
MS GALLAGHER: I have had the opportunity in the last 24 hours to attend a number of functions around the town, talking with the community around the budget,
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