Page 1863 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Smyth.
MR SMYTH: Treasurer, what assumptions has the government used to come up with such a large increase?
MR BARR: Consistent practice with the past, Madam Speaker, recognising the strong performance of the portfolio.
MADAM SPEAKER: Supplementary question, Mr Wall.
MR WALL: Treasurer, to what extent is the government relying on superannuation returns to achieve surplus in 2017-18?
MR BARR: We obviously make an adjustment to our headline net operating balance to ensure consistency with both past practice and to reflect the nature of the superannuation holdings within the territory’s accounts that are somewhat different from other states and territories, particularly reflecting an historical legacy of taking over liability from the commonwealth in relation to a proportion of our workforce who worked for the commonwealth government and then transitioned into the ACT public service.
We have always made that adjustment. That has been a feature of the presentation of ACT budgets from the time we changed from an AAS to a GFS accounting system. It is obviously a component of our budget both in terms of expenses and revenue and so is reflected in our net operating balance, and it makes a positive contribution to that.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Wall.
MR WALL: Treasurer, why do superannuation returns in the forward years not grow as fast?
MR BARR: In the forward estimates it is Treasury’s practice to return to long-run estimates of growth. Obviously, these are adjusted from budget to budget to reflect immediate actual performance but then, generally speaking, over the final two outyears of the budget period long-run performance is normally forecast. That is the basis for most projections in the final two years of the budget estimates period.
ACTION bus service—performance
MR COE: My question is to the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services. Minister, why do 30 per cent of ACTION buses run not according to the schedule?
MR RATTENBURY: As has been discussed at various times before, in estimates and the like, ACTION has historically done its timing points off a range of manual observations. But as I have indicated previously, with the introduction of the MyWay system and the full GPS tracking of buses, we are now seeing a tightening of those timetables. Certainly with the introduction of network 14, which is based much more on accurate data from the MyWay system rather than manual observation, ACTION is predicting an improvement in its on-time running performance.
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