Page 2807 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 14 August 2018
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Estimates 2018-2019—Select Committee—Report—Appropriation Bill 2018-2019 and Appropriation (Office of the Legislative Assembly) Bill 2018-2019—Government response, dated August 2018.
Pegasus Economics report—Review of the ACT Budget 2018-19, dated June 2018.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the Government response to the report of the Select Committee on Estimates 2018-2019.
I present the government’s response to the report of the Select Committee on Estimates 2018-2019 on the appropriation bills for general government and the Office of the Legislative Assembly. I thank the committee for its report on the appropriation bills. The government appreciates the effort of the committee and the secretariat in producing this report.
I would also like to acknowledge and thank my ministerial colleagues and their directorates for engaging constructively and in quite some depth with the committee’s inquiries. The government respects the role played by the Select Committee on Estimates in scrutinising the budget. There is no doubt that the committee’s report touches on the widest possible range of issues. This year it makes some 226 recommendations to government. I am advised that this is not quite an all-time record, but it is close.
I will discuss the government’s response to these recommendations in a moment, but it is worth spending some time considering the context of the committee’s work. The ACT budget is the annual statement of the government’s priorities. There is no clearer indication of any government’s values and priorities than how it chooses to spend public money.
With the 2018-19 budget we are seeking to grow services for our growing city. We are delivering on our commitment to return the territory budget to balance whilst at the same time stepping up our delivery of services and our investments in infrastructure across the territory.
We are building new schools and delivering more places for local students at our existing schools. We are investing more in elective and emergency surgery. There are more staff and resources for our emergency departments and more hospital beds so that Canberrans can access the high quality health care they need more quickly.
We are also working to deliver better public places right across the city and our suburbs, with new investment in road and pedestrian infrastructure, parks, waterways and local ovals. We are investing in services and infrastructure that will keep Canberra moving and protect our precious livability as our city grows.
The ACT government is positioned to step up this investment now because we have returned the territory budget to balance and the territory’s economy has been growing at the fastest rate of any Australian jurisdiction. The government has worked hard to
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