Page 2293 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 22 June 2011
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work they have done since. That was why I did move an amendment to the last motion around this issue, and I will be moving similar amendments today.
The government did investigate this issue through the review of the previous homeless strategy, breaking the cycle, and came to the conclusion that probably the impact analyses are most effective, of course, if you put them in up front of the project. It is like an evaluation. I was actually part of the homelessness group that set up that strategy and followed its progress and was part of that poverty impact analysis that was undertaken by a consultant. We really want to have this poverty impact analysis embedded into the decisions, policies and programs to ensure that they are the best way of spending money and to ensure that any new policies or programs are not going to disproportionally impact on those who are really doing it tough.
In March last year the Greens put in a submission to the government’s consultation on the triple bottom line analysis, arguing again that a poverty impact analysis had to be built into policy processes and annual budgets. Income distribution is essential for community prosperity and it is well recognised that the more equal the distribution, the better off the community is. And the real issue at hand is income distribution and how to ensure people in our community do not miss out on the wealth that the majority enjoy.
There are of course a range of measures that need to be considered. These include the Gini coefficient. There is also the Theil index. There is the Atkinson index and the Lorenz curve. And these are all ways that we can measure where we are up to. They are very useful, these measures, in looking at the spread of economic prosperity across our community and ensuring that we meet our social obligation to assist those in need and ensure the fair distribution of resources across our community. If you go to the ACT government website, measuring our progress, it shows that the Gini coefficient in Canberra in 2007 to 2008 was 0.311, and while this reflects a more equitable distribution of income than occurs in other Australian jurisdictions, it has been increasing slowly, reflecting a growing disparity in income distribution in the ACT.
On the particulars of the motion, I would like firstly to turn to, and have a little say about, the regulatory impact statements. These are, we know, governed under the Legislation Act, chapter 5, and there does appear to be some inconsistency, at least in our expectations if not the reality of product in this area. The Greens do think the government should do some more work to ensure that RISs cover everything that we can agree is appropriate they should. Section 34 of the Legislation Act requires that the minister must prepare an RIS if there is an appreciable cost on the community or part of the community. But of course, this is open to interpretation. So we really do need to have some more work done on when this will apply.
As far as the proposed budget statement process is concerned, which at this time would offer very little to us—and we are just looking at Mr Seselja’s amendment in which he talks about including in the budget statements the cost of living as part of that—our feeling is that it would not offer a lot to members of the community in actually evaluating budget proposals. We really think that does come from a poverty income analysis.
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