Page 1871 - Week 06 - Thursday, 5 June 2014
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The ACT government has a commitment to return to surplus in 2017. In the context that we are operating in this year, moving into debt to finance investment in this city is a sensible decision. The ACT is facing significant extra and somewhat unexpected pressure from the budget handed down by the federal coalition government last month; and, while the budget has not yet passed the two houses of parliament, it will impact on some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people across our country. That includes the ACT.
Against that backdrop, cutting spending now would impact too heavily on the people of Canberra. It would mean that we cannot invest in those projects that we believe will help build our city and our economy.
But as I have said before, the concept of “sustainability” should apply across the board, including to our budget bottom line. We cannot afford to be constantly in deficit. And, as the Treasurer indicated on budget day, we do not want to be building deficits because of overruns on recurrent spending. But there is no doubt that the objective of moving to surplus has been made much harder by the actions of the federal government in this year’s budget. The territory’s bottom line has taken a hit.
There is a triple whammy in the federal budget for the ACT community—direct cuts to ACT government grants; cuts to direct services provided here in the territory; and the job cuts that we expect to see rolling out in our major employer, the federal public service.
What will these cuts mean for the people of the ACT? The commonwealth are effectively cost shifting to the states and territories, and many in our community are going to feel the pain of that. These cuts will mean that the people of the ACT are likely to be looking to the ACT government to fill some of those gaps, to assist when there is no other assistance. The reality is that there is a limited amount we can do. However, in this budget, the ACT government has tried to ameliorate the impact on Canberrans and not join the federal government stampede to unfairly target those least able to pay additional and increased taxes and charges.
One of the concerns about the ideology of the federal government apparent in this budget is that they seem determined to move Australia towards an American-style, unregulated user-pays system that will disadvantage many Australians. Australians have repeatedly said no to that. We look across the Pacific and say clearly that we do not want to have a two-tiered education system, we do not want to lock people out of a university education, and we do not want to make it harder for people to go to the doctor.
The impact on our healthcare system not only directly affects our front-line services but also affects the strategic support system, Medicare local, and, obviously, patients themselves by way of the Medicare co-payment. This co-payment unravels the universality of the Medicare system which most Australians consider to be an accepted part of life and puts at risk those who can least afford it.
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