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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 2 Hansard (9 March) . . Page.. 441 ..

MR QUINLAN

fairly thinly, but the Commonwealth was to blame. The Chief Minister did say that, of the nine budgets that had been brought down since self-government, "without a doubt this is the most important". Mr Speaker, I am sure it was important, because there was an election coming on.

By this stage in our financial management we had sold off the light fleet for no real gain, we had sold off Jindalee Nursing Home, we had had a crack at selling off the ACTION fleet, we had sold off the Magistrates Court, we had taken $100m of capital out of ACTEW and brought forward ACTEW's dividend for an extra $40m, not to do something sensible like invest in the superannuation liability or in debt reduction, but to fund recurrent expenditure, to prop up the operating budget. These were the better management decisions and the can-do of the Carnell Government. But there was an election coming. The presentation speech made no mention of tough decisions, no mention of tough times. The Chief Minister did say, "We listened to the Canberra people and shaped our priorities around the needs and concerns of the community". Those to me are "please elect me" lines.

In 1998-99, which is the only budget that I have witnessed first-hand, it was quite interesting. The economic environment was tight but there were low interest rates, low inflation and a positive outlook for the economy. We did get a new slogan. It was not about tough decisions. It was not about a can-do attitude. What we got was this:

... this Government has a vision for the future of Canberra as the clever, caring capital of Australia - a capital that has a dynamic and sustainable economy, and a city that has a safe, active and healthy community.

Actually, that sounded pretty good to me. I was new in the place and it was fairly impressive on face value. Secretly, I think I could have even lived with that. But then I looked through the budget papers, looking for the clever bits, looking for the caring bits. The first thing I noticed was that streetlights were up for sale to ACTEW. This was an asset sale by another name. Surprise, surprise!

Mr Humphries: But you support that. You proposed doing that in "Working Capital".

Mr Osborne: You did not discover that, I did.

MR QUINLAN: It was pretty hard to miss, actually. We did a check on the deal that we had struck and I looked for the charge that ACTEW might recover for operating the streetlights. I looked for an increase so that they had made their $100m investment work. No, it was not there, and there was no detail in the forward estimates. Later my questioning revealed that ACTEW was delighted with this deal, delighted to lose $100m, and delighted to have their income reduced because the money they were to receive for operating the streetlighting, now that they owned it, was less than they got for supplying service to it when they did not own it.

Mr Humphries: How would you have done it, Ted?

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