Page 705 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011

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Queensland than live in the ACT. I can’t afford a house, I can’t afford the parking. I‘m trying to do everything right, but I’ve got a government that doesn’t listen to my needs as an ordinary person”.

The cost of living and the effects of the budget are incredibly important to ordinary Canberrans. This budget, as with so many other budgets of this government, will be measured, I am sure, on, “How much of your money have we spent? We’re great because this is the biggest budget we’ve ever had.” That is the pat line from a string of Labor treasurers, instead of measuring how they have affected the well-being of ordinary Canberrans and how they have reduced the cost of living. That would be an interesting indicator in a budget bill. We might actually have a cost of living statement where we said, “This budget will reduce the cost of living on ordinary Canberrans by X”. Of course, you will never see that, because no Labor budget ever reduces the cost of living for ordinary Canberrans.

This is why the independence of the committee is important. This is why, in many ways, the process is already tainted. We have got people who will be on this committee who are already committed to supporting the budget. They will support it instead of undertaking critical analysis and the work required to work out whether or not this is a budget that will truly deliver for the ordinary people of Canberra.

Mr Seselja: We saw that last year.

MR SMYTH: Well, we certainly did see that last year. The whole process was railroaded right from the start. That is the problem with the Greens-Labor alliance running the estimates committee, and that is why we will not be supporting either of these budgets. That is why we are here and we will stand by our motion. We are interested in making sure that the well-being of all Canberrans is improved because of the budget, that the cost of living is reduced because of the budget and that, at the same time, people get the standard of living they deserve and the standards of service and timeliness of service they should be able to reasonably expect in the capital of a fairly affluent country. To all of these amendments, we will be saying no.

MS BRESNAN (Brindabella) (10.34): Firstly I will speak to Mr Corbell’s amendments, and I also foreshadow that I have circulated an amendment. It does seem, unfortunately, that Ms Hunter’s amendment is not going to be supported by the opposition or the government, which is disappointing. So I will be moving an amendment regarding the composition of the committee.

I appreciate that Mr Corbell has omitted that provision in his amendments, but it is important that we specify that the chair of the committee is a non-government member. Omitting that line leaves it open to the process that it could potentially be a government member, and we believe it is important that a non-government member is the chair of that committee.

Regarding the reporting time frame, we will not be agreeing to that amendment either. We believe the committee should have the maximum time to prepare the report. We must remember that, although the government are preparing a budget, they have a considerable time frame to prepare that. The committee has a much shorter time frame


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