Page 1414 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
way you support my argument by going through all the issues that ACTCOSS has raised around the level of need and the level of unmet need in the community. It goes exactly to that challenge of government. It goes to the challenge of government. When needs across government continue to grow, and indeed rapidly outstrip your growth in your revenue, if you funded everything that had come forward as a priority project for government you would be in big trouble. You simply cannot do it. Therefore you do have to go and prioritise spending.
Look at how health demand is growing as it is, and demand for disability services. Let me just take disability services, for example. People are surviving accidents they never survived in the past. Children are living with significant disabilities, living longer than they ever have before. That is all fantastic, but what it does is impact on the demands for government expenditure, because growth in disability continues. Growth in disability is growing as fast as growth in health, and that presents a challenge to government.
Revenue is not growing anywhere near the speed that demand for government services grows. Nobody wants to have their government services cut. Government does not want to cut services either, because the level of need in the community is there. But government has to go through a job of weighing up what is reasonable in terms of revenue, what is reasonable in terms of expenditure, what services we can offer, and what are those really difficult decisions about what services we cannot fund because there is not enough money. The issues that ACTCOSS raised are issues that we are very well aware of.
I can say that we have funded the community sector. I know that those in the community sector are out there struggling, and their wages are appalling. I understand all that. But we have funded the community sector more than any other government in this place. Indeed, we have indexed them in a way that they were never indexed before, to give them some capacity to grow their services or their wages every year. We have funded new community services. We are building new community centres for them in former school sites so that we can alleviate the pressure from their rent, which has been a big issue for many of them, particularly those in the private rental market.
I reject completely the allegations that we have had eight years of reckless spending. Look back through the investments we have made in additional health services, the additions we have made to support children who are at risk, the additional support to people with a disability, the additional support going into homelessness and into our emergency services. But there is always more that governments are asked to do. We are always asked to do more. As I said, our demand continues to grow and continues to outstrip by far the amount of money that we raise through our revenue lines.
That is the balance that I seek to address through the budget each year. They are difficult decisions. We have a plan. The seven-year plan is the right plan. It avoids the sharp shock. It allows us to continue to grow our budget, deliver key services and protect those core services. Indeed, the second part of Mr Smyth’s motion is not objectionable. The challenge is there for the government but it is one that we are up for.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video