Page 2362 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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I welcome this recommendation and hope that the government will adopt it. It is disappointing that the main committee report saw nothing wrong with the head-in-the-sand approach and chose not to include such a recommendation.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.47): It has been recommended by housing advocates that the money in the home loan portfolio could serve a double function. It is money that helped people to buy their government housing in earlier times, and it could also be injected into public housing. I believe that has happened once, under Bill Wood’s stewardship, and I believe there is potential for it to happen again.
It is not unknown. In fact, only recently, it was suggested very strongly to superannuation funds that they should start making some investment in housing. This is much more commonplace in Europe, where institutional investors are prepared to put money into affordable housing. If the government does it, it is public housing; if private institutions and superannuation funds put money in, it is private rental. I recommend that the government consider doing this with these funds.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.8 Shared Services Centre, $5,405,000 (net cost of outputs) and $3,101,000 (capital injection), totalling $8,506,000.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (4.50): The government has reported that savings from the Shared Services Centre have already been enjoyed, and this will be welcome news to all taxpayers. However, we should not get carried away prematurely with reports in the budget paper that one of the centre’s aims is “continuing to achieve savings of $20 million”. The statement is misleading—probably unintentionally—in saying that there will be a continuation of that level of saving. Obviously, the Shared Services Centre cannot continue to make these savings as it has not yet achieved that target. I raised this matter during estimates committee hearings. At that time the Chief Minister was apparently unsure of whether the $20 million saving had been achieved.
Mr Stanhope: It has in a pro rata sense.
MR MULCAHY: That is what is recorded in Hansard as your comment. The Chief Minister said: “It might be a pro rata rate.” I asked: “Is it?” He then said: “I will ask Mr Vanderheide to respond.” Mr Vanderheide said:
The $20 million takes effect for the full financial year next financial year. I guess the wording may be a little unclear. The $20 million kicks in next financial year and we expect to make $20 million savings per year—ongoing.
I do not think that has been achieved at this stage, although I acknowledge there are reports of savings that have occurred to date. I am glad to hear that the Treasurer and staff of the Department of Treasury are confident of a $20 million saving in the current financial year.
The government has championed the Shared Services Centre for all the efficiency savings it is intended to make. But it is not very clear—there is certainly nothing documented that I have seen, although there may be internally—how much it has
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