Page 3892 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.12): Yet again the Treasurer, the Chief Minister, is absent to steer one of his bills through the parliament. It is arrogance: “I don’t have to attend to hear what people have to say about my bills, because they are going to be passed anyway.” It is the sort of arrogance that is truly indicating that the Chief Minister is out of touch and it shows that this bill, while perhaps individual initiatives are fine and worthy in their own right, is also out of touch with what the people of the ACT truly want.
Mr Corbell made one of his fabulous stirring speeches. He was using both hands to emphasise, and occasionally he talks slowly because that means it is more important. He said, “That’s because this is a good bill, this is a good Labor government agenda designed to deliver to the community the benefits of strong financial management, the benefits from effective and restrained expenditure”—even though they are spending an extra $36 million—“and to target the support in areas where it makes a difference for people in our community.”
And he is right: it is definitely a Labor government bill. I detect a shade of Gough Whitlam in there: “She’ll be right, comrades.” There is no view for the long term or the future. What we have got is a big-spending, scattergun approach with no obvious plan to get the maximum effect out of this budget. And we know that because, as the Chief Minister admitted in this place under questioning from the opposition, the process was, “Yes, we’ve asked departments to put up bids for money.” It was not, “What is the government agenda and how do we achieve it?” It was, “Departments, give me some ideas to spend some money.” That is the spakfilla approach to budgeting: a couple of holes here, put a bit there or a bit of putty there. You have got $36 million. Use it effectively. Quite clearly you do not know how to.
I guess there are a number of ways you could characterise the bill. It could be a “we’ve got more revenue than we expected last financial year because we ignored the property council’s advice” bill so they are just going to spend, spend, spend. The government characterise this as a budget or a bill that does not need to include tax cuts because they have an aversion to tax cuts.
We know that because the former Treasurer said, “We are going to squeeze them until they bleed, but not until they die.” And we know that from other Labor Treasurers around the country who have said that extra revenue is simply not available for tax cuts—that was Eric Ripper in Western Australia—and Kevin Foley, the South Australian Treasurer, when asked why he was increasing property taxes, said, “Because I can.” So there is no need for tax cuts despite the fact that Mr Stanhope when Leader of the Opposition said, “Being a low-taxing government is a desirable thing.”
The budget has increased by 50 per cent in six budgets: $2.031 billion was approximately our last budget. This year it is over $3 billion and we are just adding another $36 million to it. But then again perhaps this is the “I forgot to put enough money in the budget for climate change” bill, because that is exactly what it is—and the reason that occurred was that the Chief Minister and minister for the environment did not want to expose his climate change strategy to the scrutiny of estimates, and anyway after six years in government it was not even finished, or that was the excuse.
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