Page 2278 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 5 June 2013
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MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Smyth! I call Mr Barr.
MR BARR: Thank you, Madam Speaker. That is very interesting. Tony Abbott’s involuntary redundancies at 12,000 are fine. No involuntary redundancies from the ACT government is cause for concern for the opposition. There is your classic double standard, Madam Speaker. The government, of course, in every budget reviews its expenditure. Is the shadow treasurer seriously suggesting that we should not? From what I have heard this morning from the shadow treasurer, he believes we are spending too much. If he is fair dinkum about that, he should identify where he would cut.
Mr Hanson has the perfect opportunity tomorrow afternoon to outline an alternative budget. That will be Mr Hanson’s opportunity to finally front up to difficult decisions. I reckon he is going to squib it. I doubt he will be able to come up with an alternative budget. I am fairly confident that he will just say exactly what he said previously. But surprise me, Mr Hanson. Deliver an alternative budget tomorrow. I look forward to what you can come up with.
Madam Speaker, in the first year of our four-year term we are commencing the delivery of our election commitments that we took to the electorate and received an increased vote for. We are very pleased to be able to implement the clear mandate that we received at that election. The government has delivered nine surpluses in the last 10 budgets. The current economic environment is challenging for states and territories.
I was interested to note that the other budget that was delivered yesterday was in Queensland. The conservative government there delivered a $6 billion deficit. Madam Speaker, I am sorry. I missed all the outrage at the deficit that was delivered in Queensland. They delivered that deficit in spite of cutting what—15,000 jobs out of their public sector. It is not as if the issues that we are facing in the ACT are unique to this territory. They are being experienced by every government across Australia, conservative or Labor. The difference is how those governments choose to respond to those circumstances.
Let me be very clear. The idea that you run a surplus in every budget regardless of the economic conditions is pure economic folly. It is pure economic folly. We have run nine surpluses over the last decade to build up the resource base for this territory. We have the second lowest debt ratio of any jurisdiction in Australia. We have the capacity in difficult times to run deficits, and that is what we are doing now.
On the question of debate of this budget, we have now had 2½ hours of that. We will continue well into the afternoon, I am sure, and again tomorrow. There will be at least 30 hours of debate on the budget in August as well as two weeks of budget estimates. This will be the most scrutinised $4.5 billion.
Mr Hanson: Except by the Business Council.
MR BARR: Well, the Business Council had an excellent function this morning, Madam Speaker, and the feedback was very positive. Let me assure the Leader of the
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