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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1164 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

Firstly, what I want from Mrs Carnell in this budget is some honesty. It is obvious that, as a Territory, for whatever reason, we are still not living within our means and there will once again be a deficit. How is that deficit going to be funded, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker? It is through borrowing. The Chief Minister can dress it up however she likes, but it is still borrowing. In all the pre-budget leaks to the Canberra Times, the message had been that there would be no new borrowings. At page 3 of the Chief Minister's budget speech she states:

All this has been achieved without the need for new borrowings ...

Later in her speech, Mrs Carnell qualifies this to mean no new borrowings by the general government sector; but the message initially given out and understood by the Canberra community was that there would be no new borrowings, period.

The reality is that ACTEW is going to be doing the borrowing on behalf of the Government. Budget Paper No. 4 clearly shows the truth. It shows that there will be new loans taken out by ACTEW, and forced on it by the Government, to pay for, among other things, Canberra's streetlights. All I ever want to hear from the Chief Minister in this regard is the truth: "Yes, Canberra, things are tough. Unfortunately, we have had to take some money from ACTEW and, unfortunately, it is going to have to fund that money by borrowings". A continued refusal to make this budget admission is dishonest and deceitful. If the Government needs to borrow to get this year's budget on track, unfortunately, that is life; but at least be up front and honest about it. That is the best way to win my support, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker.

My second point - at the risk of being accused of talking down our economy - is that, for the third year now, the Government has failed to present a financial strategy that seriously comes to terms with our rapidly mounting debts and brings us to the point of living within our means. I said last year that I was prepared to support tough decisions in this regard, and I still am. I am disappointed that I have not seen anything really courageous for three years, and I am left wondering whether the Government really has it in it. Last year, I focused much of my attention on the Territory's massive unfunded superannuation liability and the problems this creates for us. As each year passes, it multiplies and, if left unchecked, in another decade, it will probably become too large for us to come to grips with. This is not scaremongering; this is reality. If we try to slowly chip away at it, as we are doing now, we will still be doing so in 40 years' time - and that is if things are going well. I, for one, do not want to leave that legacy of debt to my grandchildren.

There are a lot of good things in this budget, but financial bravery on the scale required is not one of them. Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, at some stage in the near future, someone in government is going to have to do something courageous, something to fix up the financial mess we are currently in. On a positive note, I appreciate the attempt this budget makes to, hopefully, produce some new local jobs. As we all know, the ACT economy is a very small fish in a large pond and is, more often than not, at the mercy of the Federal Government. Also, our private sector still provides only around 40 per cent of our local employment. In order to have financial and employment stability in the ACT,

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