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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2113 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

that because it had not rained enough and there had not been enough off days they had been too busy to put the lines on the roads. I have yet to work through the logic of this explanation by the Minister, but apparently when you have more time to do the work it takes longer to do it. That is the explanation the Opposition was given in the Estimates Committee hearings. If it had rained on more days, we would have more lines on the roads. I guess all the community can do is pray for some rain. If we get more rain, then perhaps the Government will get around to putting lines on the roads.

We also get complaints about a range of other things to do with the maintenance of the city. Litter on the verges is a City Services matter, and we know that this Government has reduced the number of people dedicated to keeping our city clean and tidy. The evidence is out there. It has been seen by the community. This Government think they have slipped that one past the community; but the community knows that the roads and verges are not being as well maintained as they used to be, and they are not happy about it - not to mention Mr Humphries's policy of leaving all the animal carcasses on the side of the road as an example to other kangaroos of what happens if they go on the road. I am venturing into Mr Corbell's portfolio area, so I will leave that to him.

The Opposition has not been happy with the performance of the Liberals over three years in the Urban Services portfolio. We have seen again and again a diminution of the quality of the service provided, whether it is libraries, general city services like keeping the city clean and well maintained, or public transport, which I can address later. We are not satisfied with the Government's performance in this area. Their attempt to cut costs has only resulted in a lower level of service to the community, and the Canberra community are not happy about it. I know because they tell me all the time.

MS HORODNY (4.55): I want to focus first on the environment part of the Department of Urban Services. Once again, I cannot talk about the environment budget, because there is no such thing. The Greens have regularly asked during previous budget processes for a separate statement within the budget of the Government's expenditure on environment protection.

Mr Wood: As there used to be.

MS HORODNY: That is right. There used to be. The Government does have a Minister for the Environment, yet the budget does not give a clear indication of the appropriation allocated to that Minister for his own portfolio, even though every other ministerial portfolio has a separate budget allocation. This is unacceptable. With a little digging around in the various outputs in the budget, it is possible to work out the appropriation for output classes under the control of the Environment Minister, but the result is disappointing.

There has been a cut of around $1m in output classes 4, 5 and 6 from $19.5m to $18.5m. The Government explains this by saying that the expenditure on remediation of contaminated sites has been reduced, but the fact is that environment spending under this Government has been reducing every year since they came to power. In the 1995-96 budget, the expenditure on the equivalent environment programs was over $20m.

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