Page 1091 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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the community health and education areas. Generally speaking, the level of expenditure, on these proposed figures, indicates that, when you take into account increases in relation to inflation, real spending on virtually every item in this budget has decreased. So, once again, it involves looking at the cost to the community of what these figures really represent. We shall be doing that. We fully intend to participate in the Government's invitation on consultation, and we look forward to the genuine budget debate, not the Clayton's one that is currently occurring.
MR MOORE (3.50): The Labor Party document For a fairer Canberra indicated that there would be some attempt to ensure that the Labor Party's policies and concepts would be able to influence what it is attempting to do in government. The budget proposal, this initial statement, is, of course, an attempt to try to implement those policies. What I see, on my reading of this initial statement, is a failure of the Labor Government to do just that.
What I see instead is a public service budget. That is not to deride the public service, because it has been doing this job, and doing it quite well, for some years. But what people had hoped for self-government was a situation in which the Government would put a direction on the budget. Mr Kaine has talked about this as a steady-as-she-goes budget, and that is another way of saying the same thing; it is a public service budget, and it is quite appropriate that the public service would put it out. But we had expected that there would be some influence from the Government - some major influence, a major shift in direction - to try to implement the sorts of policies that the Government espouses.
I do not see it in the areas about which I am to speak. But let me say that I commend the Government for coming out with the initial statement - I believe it was a courageous thing to do - and putting into action a consultation process. We have already had one discussion with the head of Treasury, and I presume we will have many more discussions with not only Treasury people but also, in my case, the public servants in the environments of education, health and so forth.
Considering that the Government has been courageous, we believe we have taken a responsible stand in not rushing to the media, picking a particular thing and screaming that this is what is going to happen, because it may well not happen. We believe that the Government is attempting to be genuine in this respect and that we will be able to have some influence on some of the areas, and I am going to address a few of those areas shortly.
But I have one further comment to make about the overall concept. The overall concept of this budget, as far as I am concerned, in the areas with which I deal is that it is
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