Page 1141 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 3 May 2006
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to make up for all the apparent inadequacies that we left him? He has been able to spend that money because it was there—because we did leave the place in good financial circumstances.
The legacy of the Stanhope years is profligate spending, not looking after the assets of the ACT, not putting aside money for the future, not fixing the leaky roof in the good years but waiting until it was flooding down and he suddenly got wet, and not looking out for the ordinary taxpayer. It was most surprising to listen to the Chief Minister not debate our motion. As is typical when he has got nothing to say, he just launches into a tirade about how he sought access to such documents when he was in opposition. Presumably this means that he recognises that there is no defence to the non-release of the Costello report. So he just avoids the issue, as he does so often. The Chief Minister offered no defence for the dismal economic performance of his government and he offered no defence for his government’s financial management, which would put any of the former states of the Soviet Union to shame.
Mr Stanhope: Four successive surpluses.
MR SMYTH: He says, “Four successive surpluses.” And now we have got four successive deficits. I do not know any government that has been able to come through a boom like we have had and whose end product is a series of deficits—four in a row. You have ridden on the back of the success of the Howard government, but even they have not been able to keep you afloat, Chief Minister.
Obviously the Chief Minister had no idea that his predecessor Rosemary Follett had tried and failed with this experiment of a centralised shared services bureau—an experiment that cost the ACT rather than generated any savings—which again highlights the inadequacy of the advice he is getting. Let me ask the Chief Minister, and he can speak again if he wants: did the Costello report contain any reference to, let alone any analysis of, the Follett shared services experiment? I think we will be waiting for a long time for that answer.
What Mr Stanhope should do now, rather than hide the Costello report under the cloak of cabinet confidentiality, is release the report, consult on and debate the findings in the report with the community and develop proposals to respond to the report’s findings and the views of the community. There is already misinformation about the content of the report—so he claims. There are rumours about the recommendations. There is uncertainty and confusion within the ACT public service about the implications of the report. And we now know that a broadly equivalent shared services experiment in Western Australia has not led to any savings at this point. What we do know from the Western Australian Treasurer is that there have been no savings. The current bill is $50 million—and look what Western Australia are getting for their investment in the Costello prescription: this enormous dog’s breakfast of a structure for their public service.
The point here is that we need to look at what the Chief Minister actually said in opposition. In 2001, Jon Stanhope promised open and transparent government, reinforced by appropriate accountability and responsibility. We would question whether his government at any time from October 2001 through to today has been guided by this sense of being open and transparent. I note that the current ALP platform reaffirms this
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