Page 1789 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 June 2016
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Certainly a focus on the deficit ignores the long-term plan, which does see us returning to a balanced budget in the coming years, certainly well within the forward year estimates.
Mr Smyth notes in his motion that government expenditure has increased by $1.1 billion in the past five years. But he also notes that income has also increased. This seems to me like an entirely sensible way to deliver in a balanced way the services and infrastructure that the Canberra community wants. We are seeing growth in population. We are seeing growth in the number of households in the city. All of these things lead not only to increased demand for services, but also increased revenue. Necessarily, government spending will go up. I think that is something the community expects.
Similarly, it is worth noting that around the country many local councils have been surveying their residents as to what kind of expenditure options they prefer. Options in these surveys were either that people pay less in rates and have fewer services, they pay about the same rates for the same level of services, or they pay higher rates and have a higher level of service delivery.
What has been very interesting from the results of these surveys that I have seen is that a majority of residents actually choose to pay higher rates so that they can have a higher level of services. I do not believe there has been such a specific survey in the ACT, but I do believe that our community would reflect those other communities across Australia in saying, “Actually, we live in a community that is willing to pay for good quality services.”
We know that our community wants high quality services. They want high quality public spaces, parks, playgrounds, paths, roads and sports fields. Canberrans want decent expenditure on our hospitals, on our health system, on our schools and our public transport system, and they also want social services, community services and emergency services.
These are things that we can deliver within a balanced budget if we raise enough revenue. We need to be realistic about that. We have seen the Canberra Liberals come in here and complain about a range of charges to deliver those services to our community. I look forward to them articulating their position over the coming months as they try to posit themselves as an alternative government. If they are saying that they are going to cut a range of fees and charges in our community, they need to be clear about what services they are going to cut in response. They need to outline to our community where they are willing to make those cutbacks. They need to be very clear about that.
I disagree with Mr Smyth and some of his colleagues that there has been a decline in the quality of services over the past five years; and I disagree that our community amenity is being run down. All you need to do is travel outside this city to know that we have extremely high quality services in this city, that we have great urban amenity, and we live in one of the most liveable cities on this planet. Anybody who argues otherwise clearly has not travelled very much and has a very narrow view of what the rest of the world is like.
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