Page 2851 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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Deficits are not necessarily evil, but they are to be used sparingly. Not only is that pure common sense, it is sound financial practice, which Treasurer Andrew Barr knows only too well. We know that in his maiden speech in 2006 he stood in this place and proclaimed with some superiority:
Running a surplus operating budget provides intergenerational equity. It means that each generation of the ACT community pays for the government services they are receiving. A surplus budget is vital to maintaining the territory’s AAA credit rating.
In 2006 Andrew Barr said it was essential to run a surplus budget. Today it is essential he brings down a massive deficit. And that is not the most outlandish claim he has made. He is quite the verbal contortionist, but even we were impressed when we heard him describe a budget that delivers a $318 million deficit as “balanced and measured”. A balanced and measured $318 million deficit. There is nothing measured about the way this government spends and manages the budget. Since the GFC gave them the smokescreen they needed to spend and keep on spending, ACT Labor are like kids let loose in a lolly shop.
The problem is that it is the family budgets in the ACT that will have to bail them out. It is the cost of living of families that feel the strain when ACT Labor cannot control their spending and cannot control the waste. And waste is another hallmark of 11 years of this government.
This government has turned wasting money into an Olympic event. The GDE is the glaring example—the road that took longer to build than the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But it was the decision, misguided and mystifying as it was, to build the road as one lane. Again, it was not external factors, or shortage of workers—it was pure mismanagement. Like the ESA headquarters—originally budgeted for $13 million; it blew out to $76 million. The Canberra Hospital car park—from $29 million to $43 million. The mental health facility—from $11 million to $14 million. The Googong pipeline—from $96 million to $156 million. The busway—$5 million to deliver nothing at all. Dead running buses for ACTION have cost Canberrans $27,000 every day—$190,000 per week. Of course, the biggest of them all is Cotter Dam—from $120 million to over $400 million. Some of that was due to natural events, but to blow the budget by nearly four times is just poor planning.
Wasted money, wasted opportunities. That is why the government has such big deficits and that is why Canberra families face such appalling cost of living pressures.
Mr Speaker, I have very serious concerns about this budget. More concerns than any budget that has been delivered in the past 11 years. Forgive my scepticism, my concern, my doubts about the “great reforms” from this “great reformer” but the last reforms Andrew Barr undertook were to shut 23 schools immediately after Katy Gallagher promised there would be no school closures. I think we should all be very doubtful, and we will be examining it very closely over coming weeks. I have serious concerns about the implications of cost of living, and that is the filter through which I and my colleagues will be viewing the outcomes.
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