Page 1937 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 6 May 2009
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Mr Seselja: You had a hysterical campaign, Katy.
MS GALLAGHER: on any issue. We have made no secret—and with respect particularly to paragraph (1)(a), we are happy to support that element of the motion, noting that the ACT will be in deficit well into the next decade. I do not know that we needed a motion to do that. The budget papers were delivered yesterday and they clearly indicated that. We informed the community, well in advance of the budget, a number of times about the position of the ACT budget and the impacts that world events were having on it.
We plan to restore the budget to surplus by 2015-16. This is not about deferring the problem; it is about meeting the challenge through a steady and realistic approach. That approach includes an understanding that services in government will continue to grow. We could have taken an easy approach. We could have removed wages provisions; we could have removed our 6.2 per cent growth indexation that we factor in across our forward estimates. That would return the budget to surplus, but it is unrealistic to expect that health services will not grow every year across the forward estimates.
We believe that cutting expenditure to return the budget to surplus would have consequences for the economy, consumer confidence and, importantly, on services to the community. Increasing taxes at this time would reduce disposable income and further damage consumer confidence at a time when we are wanting to support consumer and business confidence and encourage people to spend.
Of necessity then, the government has adopted a longer term approach to restoring the budget to surplus. This approach recognises that any response to the financial crisis needs to be measured. We will put our community first and focus on the services it needs.
Our budget plan recognises the job that we have got ahead of us. It takes into account current uncertainty and the eventual recovery. It has the robustness to be relevant in the face of changes and it incorporates enough time for flexibility and adjustments to be made should circumstances change.
The plan will reduce the territory’s budget deficit over the forward estimates through fiscal discipline and the achievement of realistic efficiencies in the delivery of government services. It identifies a number of targeted actions to achieve a balanced budget. These include wage restraint, efficiency improvements, including savings and program expenditure reviews to target resources to high priority areas and to provide offsets for new policy measures. The government’s plan for eliminating the deficit does not underestimate the magnitude of the task and it sets out a clear strategy for action.
In relation to the reforms that we implemented in 2006-07, for which this government has been vindicated through this budget and through the operating result, the government provided for significant and deep structural changes to place the territory’s budget on a long-term sustainable footing. The reforms consolidated
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