Page 2260 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014
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I would also like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the effort and time spent by the Centre for International Economics in providing an independent assessment of the territory’s 2014-15 budget.
The 2014-15 budget represents an investment in Canberra’s future, a plan to deliver services and infrastructure to suit the needs of the territory both now and into the future. The 2014-15 budget represents the government’s response to challenging economic circumstances, driven by a range of external events that are well beyond the territory government’s control.
The budget supports our community, our most vulnerable, our businesses and our households. We face challenges now and going forward as a result of the commonwealth government’s fiscal consolidation efforts. We have seen and continue to see the commonwealth reducing the size of the Australian public service.
The commonwealth budget also announced substantial reductions in funding to the ACT for health and hospital services. In response, the territory government decided to continue to invest in health. We saw no reason to exacerbate the impact of the commonwealth’s decisions on Canberrans and decided to maintain service levels provided to the territory’s population.
Understandably, this decision to invest in the territory’s health has impacted on our net operating balance. As has occurred in the past, when circumstances have required we have supported our economy and our people, with a view to achieving an operating balance over time—offsetting temporary deficits with surpluses in other years.
Historic levels of infrastructure investment will result in job growth across the city, and reform processes initiated in prior budgets continue to make our tax system fairer, simpler and more efficient. Concessions to assist low income households have been expanded to ensure that we support the most vulnerable in the community.
We are facing difficult economic times, and the budget will be in deficit this year. The government has taken a specific course of action to support the economy and our community ahead of returning the budget to balance through severe austerity initiatives. We will provide the support that our city needs now to grow and prosper in the longer term.
The estimates committee report presents 138 recommendations. These recommendations, together with the findings of the Centre for International Economics report, cover a broad range of matters across the spectrum of government service delivery.
It is not my intention this morning to analyse each of the select committee’s recommendations individually before the Assembly. The government’s response serves this purpose, and I have tabled that this morning. However, I would note one particular issue. The government has received a range of responses from the community, including from the estimates committee, about the Payroll Tax Amendment Bill 2014, and we have decided to amend the start date for this bill to 1 January 2015.
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