Page 2298 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 12 August 2014

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The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate—Schedule 1A, Part 1.7—$194,559,000 (net cost of outputs), $256,524,510 (capital injection), $63,182,201 (payments on behalf of Territory), totalling $514,265,711.

MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.22): I will speak first, but I imagine that there will be many members speaking to this proposed expenditure given that there is so much in this area now. Let me start by saying that what we have here is a government and a budget that are laden with higher fees, higher rates, high debt and high deficit.

Mr Barr: That was your morning speech. You are reading the wrong one now.

MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Barr!

MR HANSON: Mr Barr has started interjecting already, which is always an indication that he is a little bit twitchy about what might be there in his budget. As we have heard already in the debate, there is a range of issues and of projects. We had a discussion of a range of projects which we are seeing this government introducing despite the overwhelming objections and concerns not only of the experts but also of the population.

This is a budget that is going to saddle the people of Canberra with an additional $1 billion of debt, taking debt in this budget beyond $4.5 billion. In this budget alone, there is an additional $1 billion of debt. That is the highest that has been recorded in territory history. I think we need to understand this in the context of what you would get for $4.5 billion—how many hospitals, how many schools, what other infrastructure in terms of roads that that would buy.

But also in terms of servicing that debt, we need to understand what we could provide to the people of Canberra. As much as this government will say, “It doesn’t matter. We can run up this debt and we can sustain it,” the reality is that when a government does go into debt, when a government does go into deficit, there is a significant opportunity cost. That opportunity cost is now being experienced across the people of Canberra in terms of the services that are being delivered but also in terms of the cost of living as this government scrambles after every single dollar to get out of their pockets in rates and in higher costs and charges across the board.

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