Page 1211 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 30 May 2007
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Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope has promised not to play “the ogre” in the upcoming ACT budget—unlike last year.
The article went on to say:
Mr Stanhope said he had to be “the ogre” and expose himself to community odium last year. He said there would be no repeat of the razor-gang approach to finances this time around.
I think that is interesting. Much has been said today in regard to the paragraphs (1) to (3) of the motion. I will therefore try to restrict most of my comments to paragraph (4), which calls on the ACT government similarly to commit to sound economic management, to seek to reduce the tax burden on the people of Canberra by lowering the cost of government in the ACT and to reduce the number of nuisance taxes in the ACT. The shadow Treasurer is continually berated, inaccurately, by the Chief Minister. Clearly, we can see something that he cannot; that is, efficiency, working more openly and transparently, and doing things more effectively with what you have got.
Leading on from what my colleagues have been saying in this place today, I find it difficult for the ACT government to justify that its economic management principles are sound. In fact, I would go further and say that it has a very weird perception, to my mind, of the true priorities for the everyday needs of all Canberrans. Looking at the portfolio areas for which I am the shadow minister, I believe there is a real opportunity to make additional cost savings in areas such as administration and logistics associated with delivering essential services such as health, housing and disability services.
As the shadow Treasurer has pointed out, there is certainly more room for a more efficient public service. I do not know about other members, but I talk to public servants a lot and, by their own admission, they will tell you that it is embarrassing a lot of the time to see people just sitting there running businesses from computers in offices and walking around with clipboards, as the old expression goes, simply wasting time. Why are we not on top of that? Why is this government not looking into its public service and the effectiveness of what is happening within the system? That is one really good area. In fact, Mr Mulcahy called for tax cuts and said that they could be balanced by spending cuts from having a more efficient public service.
Sound economic management sometimes does require very difficult decisions. It is a key component of good governance, something the territory desperately needs at a time when we are seeing budgets in deficit, thus requiring a significant shift by the government to deliver us back into surplus. What we have here is a government in denial that it is awash with cash from all the areas that we have spoken about many times in this place—the GST, land sales et cetera. I could go on and on. We hear about it day in and day out when we sit in this place.
Surplus budgets surely must allow governments to expend more funds on essential services, something the Stanhope government has always indicated it would do. In fact, that is what it is saying in its amendment it is going to do. It is saying it is going to focus on essential services—commitment, delivery. We have yet to see it, I fear.
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