Page 2137 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 May 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Budget deficits do matter. There is nothing temporary about them. The money has to be found somewhere—if not now, in the future. The waste that occurred under this government’s watch during low inflationary, low unemployment and high growth times is scandalous. And now they seek to take us even further down the unsustainable, high tax, high deficit, high waste, unsustainable path.
The urban services budget is nothing more than the government playing catch-up on years of neglect. The number of urban services projects rolled over is indicative of a government that cannot get its priorities right and fails on delivering the most basic services that Canberrans demand and pay for.
There is no better example of this than the library for the inner south. Many people throughout the inner south still cannot believe that the Griffith library was closed. It was a very popular service and was utilised highly by residents in the inner south. Just think how much money the taxpayer would have saved had the government not closed the library in the first place. Instead of maintaining an important service, the government has now allocated $7.1 million to rent, staff and stock a new library in Kingston. There are some issues with this, not least because of the difficulty of parking at Kingston and the cost of parking at Kingston—which will also go up as a result of the budget. Many older residents, younger families and people with a disability who were able to utilise the Griffith library with the confidence that there would be a car park and easy access may not be able to easily use the library in Kingston.
Not only does this government avoid the difficult decisions; when it makes the easy ones it simply gets them wrong. Rates have gone up beyond inflation by some 3.7 per cent; and yet our local infrastructure is generally in bad condition. It is a great shame that some in the community still remember the days before self-government as days when the look of our city was better and public amenity much higher. We have to work harder in this place to get the basic local services right.
The budget papers reveal that the government has failed to meet road surfacing targets. Again, more and more roads are not being resurfaced and the quality of the overall network continues to decline. There is evidence that suggests that the road resurfacing that is done is not even done properly.
The transport budget is nothing more than a desperate cash grab. The budget papers reveal a slap in the face to every single Canberra commuter. The government’s transport plan is simply a tax plan. All Canberrans commute, and all are about to pay more. Parking fees will increase substantially. From 1 July this year, there will be an increase of 20 per cent on ticketed parking machines, and from next year an increase of 50 per cent on metered machines. People parking in the surface parking areas around our city will be paying $375 extra per year—$250 extra in Belconnen, Woden and Tuggeranong.
The average Canberran, I think, would be happy to pay more if better services were going to be delivered. But what more is someone driving a car to the city going to get? Not much. Instead, they are going to get a parking study and an increased number of full-time parking inspectors.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .