Page 1243 - Week 04 - Thursday, 4 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
In closing, it is worth reflecting on just how the debate surrounding the steps taken by the Stanhope government to instigate, delegate and then deliberate on the findings from the functional review of the ACT budget has arisen. Any government of the day undertakes reviews as part of regularly assessing government priorities, pressures on government policy direction or simply to ensure that the operational side of government, including the public service sector, is in a sound position to maintain a responsive approach when dealing with executive directives.
A few years ago, the then ACT Treasurer, Ted Quinlan, commissioned a report, the economic white paper, and this was the paper to beat all papers. My understanding of the need for such a report was to provide a clear snapshot of the territory’s economic position and how government is planning for our economic future, keeping in mind the need to expose strengths or competitive advantages yet also actively identifying the risks or vulnerabilities.
I certainly stand here today to support this matter of public importance—one that we will certainly keep playing on, one that we certainly will keep on talking about—because this government has no ability to handle finances whatsoever. The Assembly hopes, and I am sure, that evidence of a command of the numbers is forthcoming by 6 June, when the Treasurer brings down his first budget.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (4.47): I thank Mrs Burke for raising this matter. The strategic and functional review of the ACT public sector is a matter of public importance and should be discussed in the context in which it was commissioned.
The government’s decisions arising from the functional review will be announced in the budget. The government will be reporting those decisions transparently and explaining them. There will be considerable information to inform both the Legislative Assembly and the community more generally about those decisions. Today, of course, is not the time to be debating or speculating on possible decisions, when the budget has not yet been completed.
However, the government does welcome the opportunity to discuss the ACT economy and the future challenges facing the budget because, while the functional and strategic review might be integral to the next ACT budget, it is also very much about the future—the future a decade from now, two decades from now or three decades from now. We need to look at the context within which the functional and strategic review was commissioned.
The review was commissioned in the context of significant demographic and technological change. It was commissioned in the context of the first majority government in the history of the Assembly, the first government with the capacity not only to identify the challenges confronting this community but also with the unfettered capacity to do something about those challenges. As I have said in this place before, others have seen the writing becoming clearer through the mist. No government has been in as good a position as this one to read that writing and to heed it. There is no better
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .