Page 1603 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008

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MR HARGREAVES: to bring them up to a standard where the maintenance budget in the base can cope with that. In the base, guys: budgeting 1.01. I refer you to that.

Mrs Dunne: Are you pulling the floor out from under the base?

MR SPEAKER: I warn you, Mrs Dunne.

MR HARGREAVES: In the base you get significant funds for playground refurbishment, for shopping centre precincts. In fact, only recently Ms Porter did some work around the Melba shopping centre. Where was the money for that, I ask you. I would not have to ask that of Mr Mulcahy because he already knows the difference between zero-based budgeting and incremental budgeting. This is what the Stanhope Labor government is all about. It is an incremental increase in the quality of this city.

I am absolutely sick and tired of having these people constantly running the town down. It is only these people who think that this city is dirty and ragged. It is not. I am proud of this city. I am proud of the significant funds that sit up in the base. Sitting in the weight—

Mr Pratt: Well, not according to the calls into the ABC last week. Not according to the weight of callers into the ABC last week.

MR HARGREAVES: Just listen to those opposite. They do not know the difference between an incremental budget and a zero-based budget. If they go back and have a look at the tables for successive budgets, they will see that there is a lot of money in the base. They will also see the moneys that have been provided in previous budgets into the outyears forming the new base. They will then see that, because we have been responsible, because there has been a significant economic upturn in the town, and because of the hard work and the pain the people of Canberra put up with in the last couple of years, we are now paying dividends.

We can plough a lot more of that money back into the city. The money that we are ploughing back into the city is because of people’s hard work. Instead of saying, “What happened to the outyears?” they ought to go back and check the outyears in the previous budget; they will see it sitting there. They will see that a $2 million injection is brilliant.

Chief Minister’s Department—staffing

MR MULCAHY: My question is to the Chief Minister. In the 2007-08 budget, you made provisions for an extra 22 positions in your department. It is now apparent that the actual increase in staffing numbers was 42, which represents an increase of 33 per cent on the 2006-07 levels. What additional role is being undertaken by the extra 20 staff in your department?

MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Mulcahy, for the question. Perhaps I need to take some advice on the specifics of that in order to give you a detailed response in relation


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