Page 1762 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 August 2007
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In this year’s budget the presentation of staffing profiles has been changed from the head count system used in 2006-07 to a full-time equivalent basis. I am not commenting on which presentation is more suitable, but it is virtually impossible to directly contrast the two. This difficulty is compounded by the decision of the Stanhope government to stop producing the state of the service report. The last state of the service report was for the period 2004-05. This is another example of a government that does not want to be open and accountable. It is unwilling to provide detailed information about the workings of government, and now the presentation of this year’s budget has made any analysis of its staffing profile unnecessarily difficult.
There are other examples that relate to this year’s budget. Some might seem rather small, but I will mention a few. Altering performance indicators tends to obscure poor performance. For example, with the hared Services Centre, indicators were changed following the inability of the centre to reach the targets set last year. One such target was the time taken for telephone service requests to be dealt with by the InTACT service desk. Following the Shared Services Centre’s failure to meet the target, the government has now revised its new target to reflect existing levels of service. It is easy to go through life by just lowering the standard and saying, “Well, there you go. I meet the requirements.” In effect, the government set a new, easier-to-reach target that significantly changes what was expected last year. Although this is a small example, it illustrates how the government has been less than open about its shortcomings as it seeks to obscure and bury them.
I have not gone into great detail about the government’s failure to release the functional review, and I do not propose to. But it continues to be a thorn in the side of the community, because it was the basis of so many cuts to the ACT community. The government’s unwillingness to make that public, while citing cabinet secrecy, flies in the face of a commitment to open and transparent government. This government, by virtue of its absolute majority, is able to utilise these mechanisms and make itself largely unaccountable. I believe that is to the detriment of governance in the territory.
In recent times we have had debate over the dramatic changes in the territory budget that occurred in the space of just nine weeks or so. I know that the Chief Minister was hoping he would get a pat on the back for the ultimate variation being in the order of $200 million from the forecast a year earlier; whilst all sorts of excuses may be rendered for that change in fortune, it travels rather less convincingly when you look at the circumstances of the ACT’s financial position changing so dramatically just from June through to August. It begs the question as to whether the figures that were presented in the budget, which are still not debated, are based on a foundation that is flawed or whether the extreme conservatism in revenue is simply either incompetence or an attempt to reduce public concern about the levels of taxes that are being applied across this community.
It beggars belief that from early June to this date we can suddenly find a change in our fortunes of around $100 million. None of that sits comfortably in this community with people. First, they expect competence—and I have been very critical of poor forecasting in this territory since I was elected here. Second, it raises questions about how open the territory government has been in terms of the forecasts of revenue.
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