Page 83 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 14 February 2012
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The budget review also incorporates the additional impact of recent enterprise bargaining outcomes. These pay rises across the ACT public service have been essential for us to maintain the quality of the public service—a public service that is competitive with the commonwealth and with other jurisdictions. Without these pay increases, we would continue to lag behind other jurisdictions and lose quality staff needed to provide essential services to the community.
The territory’s investments have declined, due predominantly to the volatility in financial markets associated with the ongoing concerns relating to the European sovereign debt crisis and the lower outlook for global growth. We have, however, had better than expected investment distributions in the 2011-12 financial year, largely due to the higher Australian dollar.
I would like to outline the government’s plan to return to a balanced budget. The government will continue to act responsibly and prudently. Our plan has been to adopt a measured approach in returning the budget to balance, to not make sharp downward adjustments in expenditure, to maintain flexibility in responding to changing circumstances and to support confidence in the territory economy at a time of considerable economic uncertainty.
As I have said, we will not abrogate our service delivery responsibilities to the community, nor our responsibility to maintain jobs. We are not responding with major cuts to services or staff. The government has successfully steered the ACT through difficult economic conditions in recent years and we have maintained the strength of the local economy. We have been able to do this without resorting to slash and burn budgeting.
There is little doubt that the opposition, like their counterparts nationally and overseas, would like us to slash services and jobs. The Canberra community does not deserve such treatment and we in the Labor government will not let that happen. The government is maintaining its fiscal policy settings. The budget review forecasts remain consistent with the objectives of our budget plan, in particular with the commitment to return the budget to balance by 2013-14. Expenditure growth is at around 4½ per cent per annum, again in line with the budget plan.
The government has a range of measures in place to consolidate the ACT budget position. We have a strong record in delivering capital works to the territory, as represented by the strength of our infrastructure assets on our balance sheet. Our program continues to provide the essential infrastructure solutions for Canberrans necessary to support the continuing delivery of high quality services to the community.
As part of the 2011-12 budget review, we have undertaken a rigorous assessment of our capital works program in light of the first six months of project activity. We have assessed what the market has the capacity to deliver and have also aligned project expenditure with the requisite approval and consultation processes, particularly those involving federal environmental assessments, and the weather conditions to date.
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