Page 3238 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 3 pm, I interrupt the proceedings in accordance with the order of the Assembly of 11 September 1990.
APPROPRIATION BILL 1990-91
Debate resumed from 11 September 1990, on motion by Mr Kaine:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (3.01): I thank the Assembly for giving me this opportunity to reply. Two days ago the Treasurer brought down the first budget of his Alliance Government. It is a budget that confirms the approach to government of this motley alliance to the people of Canberra. The budget makes it clear that this is a government which has no strategy for caring for Canberra. The kind of strategy that I mean is one which would protect the economic vitality of the ACT and at the same time provide measures to increase, not decrease, social justice. The budget confirms that Mr Kaine and Mr Collaery are intent on destroying some of the greatest assets in Canberra, and it is the people of Canberra who are being required to pay for their actions. Canberrans will be paying through higher taxes and through poorer services. But this Government has not even been willing to ask the community whether it wants these changes. Mr Kaine has made it clear that he does not care what the people of Canberra think.
In his speech, the Treasurer talks about the numerous sources of input into the budget process. He mentions the Priorities Review Board, the Else-Mitchell inquiry, the TAFE working party and the Callaghan report. The significant point that he misses is that these are all Government sponsored reports. There is no community input into the formation of his budget. The Treasurer goes on to say that this consultation with himself was supplemented by inputs from the Trades and Labour Council and from CARD, but the TLC has stated that it had no consultation with the Government on the budget. The Government does not care what the community has to say. It is a secretive Government making its decisions behind closed doors. We must ask whether it is too lazy or too scared to consult with the community.
I contrast Mr Kaine's approach to budget formulation with that undertaken by my own Government last year. We undertook real consultation. We involved the community in the decision making process from the very beginning, and as a result of that consultation process we changed our budget, the better to reflect community priorities. The secrecy under which this Government takes decisions is nowhere better reflected than in the budget papers
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