Page 2867 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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What is the plan to bring it back to surplus in three years time? We have got this enormous deficit. We are going to have record borrowing because there are more borrowings coming on top, but those borrowings will be magically paid back by the 2015-16 financial year and the deficit will be brought into surplus. What is the plan? We are going to roll out the infrastructure, we are going to roll out the land release and we are going to freeze the top of the public service.
Let us go to that strategy. I will get members to cast their minds back to 1992, when another Labor government facing difficulties tried to roll out the infrastructure and tried to roll out the land release program and failed. They failed because they flooded the market. They actually devalued the market. They hurt people’s home prices. People ended up with negative equity in their homes because the Labor government just flooded the market with land. If he actually got to flood the market with land, it would be a miracle because he has not been able to even reach parity on the market at this stage.
Indeed, we asked him at annual reports whether there were any projects on the shelves: “There are no projects on the shelves.” The government are unable to deliver infrastructure. They do not get it on time and they deny the people of the ACT the utility of those infrastructure projects. They do not deliver it on budget, adding to their deficit and the burden, and they never deliver it on scale. That is the problem.
We had the embarrassment yesterday of the Chief Minister at the budget breakfast. I said, “Even in your own portfolio, there is $75 million worth of rollovers in the health capital works.” What did she say? I know it is not fair to quote it, but I will anyway: “The rollover does not necessarily account for a delay for the project or the project being over budget. It is simply about when the cash goes out the door to pay the bills. The projects in Health are taking time to roll out properly.” Taking time to roll out properly would indicate that they are not on time, Chief Minister. You are damned by your own words.
The Leader of the Opposition read out the long litany of health failures, whether it be the children and women’s hospital, which was due for completion and is now, what, a year late and $31 million over budget, and we are only going to open phase 1 in August, or the car park that went from $25 million to $45 million with a changing scope, changing budget and changing time frame. It is always changing with this lot. You cannot pin them down to anything because they never deliver major projects on time. The GDE, the prison, Tharwa bridge, the busway to nowhere, the women’s and children’s hospital, the car park—all late, all changed scope, all over budget.
We go back to what the Financial Review called the black hole. It is a black hole, despite a record tax take. The tax take—government own-source revenue—is going up to about $1.3 billion. It is the highest ever: $1.3 billion and they cannot balance the budget. We hear about how strong the ACT’s economy is. Yes, it is; it is a good economy, despite the government. If the economy is so good, how can the budget be so bad? That is a question that the people were asking at the breakfast. That is what people ask me the whole time: if, as they say, the economy is so good, why is the budget so bad?
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