Page 1920 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 3 June 2015
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government. This government does not have a genuine vision. If you were looking for a theme in this budget, up, up, up is the only thing that emerges. The debt is up, the deficit is up and fees and charges are up. That is this government to a T.
We heard a great speech from Dr Bourke. There was lots of talk about frogs. Frogs are worth while—frog sympathy being an indicator for the environment and all that sort of thing. But there was not much Dr Bourke could find to speak about. We had the old thing about the federal government cutting public service jobs, the Liberals have cut the jobs. Once and for all, 14,473 jobs in those cuts are Kevin Rudd’s cuts. If this lot opposite had put as much effort into hauling their Labor colleagues into line as they do in proffering the Abbott government as the excuse for their failings, this city might well have been a little bit better off. I remind the Chief Minister what Robert Macklin said about stop bleating—you knew it was coming, you saw it was coming and basically you did nothing. That is just so true of this government.
It is interesting that the Treasurer has finally found the suburbs. Canberra has suburbs. He is now the mayor! Is this a reflection of his resentment of Mr Rattenbury? Traditionally the Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and before that the Minister for Urban Services was on the capital cities lord mayors council. That minister did the municipal stuff so he was the mayor. But no, Mr Barr does not like sharing; Mr Barr wants to be the Chief Minister and the mayor. I do not know how far he has gone from his Treasurer’s office to find the suburbs, but he has now found the suburbs, and he is shocked. He is shocked at the state of the mowing, he is shocked at the state of the suburbs, he is shocked at the state of the shopping centres, and he is going to fix it. Yet he is the Treasurer. This is his fourth budget and he has been a member of the cabinet that oversaw the cuts that saw that decay occur. They did not keep abreast of what was going on in the suburbs. Indeed, when he became Chief Minister he said he would finally get out from behind his Treasurer’s desk and go and talk to people. Fancy having to go out there and talk to the serfs and the peasants. No doubt he will be getting a set of mayoral robes made—there might be a nice little chain to go around it as well—and he can pretend to be the mayor.
It is interesting that the only significant announcement the Chief Minister could make in this budget is that he wants to be the mayor. Perhaps it is a reflection of the tension inside cabinet, but instead of concentrating on the long-term future for Canberra, their only long-term view now seems to be the single rail line. There are a number of plans. City to the lake is getting a little bit of money, but they seem to have abandoned that pretty much. It was another fine idea. There is the city plan, but both the Property Council and CBD Ltd see nothing in this budget for the CBD, except extra parking fees. The excuse is, “People have to understand that we have high quality services.” People know they have high quality services. “People have to understand that they need to pay for high quality services.” People already do; they pay through their noses with their taxes. In many cases we are the highest taxing jurisdiction in the country. They are already there, Chief Minister and Treasurer; they already know because it is coming out of their pockets already.
It will continue to come out of their pockets as we move inexorably to the tripling of rates in 11.6 years, according to Mr Quinlan on the model you have chosen. We can see it already with the rates increases. He was quite coy yesterday on the radio, “Oh, it
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