Page 2388 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 28 June 2005

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This is an ongoing process. The government has another three years or so before the next election and maybe by the end of its term we might have it right. Mr Stanhope boasted today about what was being done in regard to research in grassy woodlands. I suggest that we use some of this expertise that exists in the Canberra community. Let us use some of the people studying at our universities on just these issues. Give them a project, supply a scholarship—for goodness sake, we know that students need those!—strengthen our links with the universities and set up a project that will enable us to expand and get this process right, because it is important.

MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader for the Opposition) (5.32): Mr Speaker, I guess that we can address under part 1.6, Department of Treasury the broad outline of what it is that the government hopes to achieve with this budget. And I guess the answer to that question is, “Not very much.”

This strikes me as almost a “why bother” budget. It is something we have to go through. It is a case of “I can’t control my colleagues’ spending but I will thump a document on the table and attempt to defend it”. But the defence we get is not very strong. I think we should be quite alarmed about the consequences for the people of the ACT, given that we are now the only jurisdiction to deliver a deficit budget in this financial year.

In responding to the budget, I would just like to take a few minutes to consider the overall approach that the government has adopted and contrast this with the approach taken by all the other jurisdictions in Australia. So let us put the ACT economy in context. We are all well aware that over the last two or three years the economies of Australia and of all states and territories have been booming. Retail sales have been strong, residential construction has been strong, commercial building has been strong and the rate of inflation has been low.

As a consequence of these strong economic conditions, the Reserve Bank has increased interest rates to seek to curb the level of activity. It is a sign from the Reserve Bank. A significant manifestation of this boom has been the strong growth in revenues flowing into federal, state and territory coffers. We in the ACT have seen the addition of hundreds of millions of dollars flood into the ACT Treasury from GST revenues and from property taxes.

More recently, there has been a moderation in the level of economic activity across Australia and in the ACT. Slightly higher interest rates have had an impact, as has the continuing drought in rural communities throughout our nation. The property boom has also subsided and there has been a general moderation in house prices.

The situation is not one of gloom and doom. Despite the states and territories having been dragged kicking and screaming to the realisation that they could abolish many of the nuisance taxes following the introduction of the GST, what we have now is a situation where we have to acknowledge that while the Australian economy is still travelling reasonably well we have to, we should, we must, adjust to our changing economic circumstances. The question is: have we? The answer in the ACT is that we certainly have not.

How have governments across Australia responded to these changed circumstances? Mr Speaker, it is interesting to note, to observe, that all governments except one have


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