Page 3824 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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… you will see that this is not about winding back the stringencies and efficiencies we imposed on ourselves last year.
In a way I think that statement was a fatal flaw in the way that the budget was put together. One of the things that are not clear in the appropriation bill—and it was not very clear in the budget we debated earlier this year—is the rationale on which some of the funding decisions were made. It is very important, I think, that people can see the basis for expenditure on various items, especially when that expenditure is unseen.
For instance, why is it that the $1 million for a one-day event for the Beijing torch ceremony in the ACT is more sacrosanct than $1 million being put into homelessness services, the much-less-than-that amount that was denied the Griffith Library to stay open, the closing of shopfronts because they were considered too expensive and, of course, the cost of running some neighbourhood primary schools which were closed because they were seen to be too costly per student? It is an interesting issue, I think, that $1 million for some events is subject to a whole different justification than the $1 million that is considered too much to put into essential community services.
You will understand, of course, the committee is very concerned about that particular item when it seems to us that there is so much that could be done. It is true that, as members, we probably would not agree on what that extra work that could be done is. Some would go for tax cuts; some would go for additional services; and some would possibly be more supportive of the government.
Those are real issues, and the reason why we included recommendation No 1 was that there should be some analysis and that the Assembly should really be given the benefit of knowing what the government is thinking because the Assembly represents the community. The community is concerned about last year’s cuts. Many people are still reeling from those. They were certainly very concerned about outlays that they normally do not see that they get the benefit for.
The Youth Coalition was the only committee organisation that had time to get a submission together on this bill, and I thank the Youth Coalition for that. But they felt that this was an appropriation bill that really affected that sector of young people. Of course, we know that everything that improves public transport is such an expenditure, because it is young people and elderly people on the whole that rely on our bus services.
I welcome the changes to our bus services but I think the community would be quite happy if we saw the ACTION bus services restored to what they were prior to the cuts and changes last year. I do not actually remember getting too many complaints before the cuts; so there must have been a level of satisfaction pre the 2006 budget of the services. We also know that there was at that time an advisory committee, a committee of bus users, that could inform the government about what bus users wanted.
I will be very interested to find out more about the consultant that was called in, no doubt at some expense, to create and draw up the new network that ACTION has
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