Page 2812 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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The 2013-14 budget will build and transform Canberra, ensuring a prosperous and sustainable second century. The reforms and funding contained within the budget demonstrate the government’s commitment to expand and transform our economy, and to create opportunity and fairness for all Canberrans. This budget will ensure the territory remains a great place in which to live, work, study and do business, and will ensure that we grow and prosper in the long term.
Although this budget continues to restructure our expenditure and revenue bases to make them more sustainable, the government has a clear goal of maintaining quality service delivery. The territory’s economy is set on the path for growth, using our solid and sustainable fiscal position as the basis for the funding of large, transformative programs, such as DisabilityCare Australia, the national education reform agreement, the University of Canberra public hospital, capital metro and the city to the lake project. These projects will not only transform how key services are delivered in our city; they will fundamentally alter the way we move around, and they will generate thousands of jobs in the process.
More broadly, the budget will expand service delivery in health, education, emergency and municipal services, public transport, corrections and, importantly, for those in need. The budget also delivers on a number of election commitments and items contained within the parliamentary agreement. In our centenary year, this budget positions the territory to meet the financial and social challenges of the future.
The estimates committee report presents 151 recommendations. In conjunction with the independent adviser’s report, it canvasses a significant number of matters contained within the budget. I will not take up the Assembly’s time now by working through each of the select committee’s recommendations. These are separately discussed in the response document which I have tabled here today.
The government has generally accepted or noted the majority of recommendations included in the committee’s report. In our response the government has agreed to 28 recommendations, agreed in principle to nine, agreed in part to two, noted 78 recommendations, and not agreed to 34 recommendations.
With the instances where recommendations were not agreed, the government has taken the time to assess what is being asked. In general terms the government has not agreed to several of the recommendations on the basis that detailed analysis or reviews, including those undertaken by independent bodies, have already been undertaken on the issues raised and, in some instances, this information is already publicly available; the suggested change or service has already been undertaken or sufficiently catered for; additional work or service provision in relation to some recommendations would result in unnecessary duplication of effort, or that existing policies address the issue raised; the recommendation does not align with current legislative practice; the recommendation makes statements or claims that are inaccurate, such as those in relation to elective surgery performance; or the recommendation requests a change that is beyond the remit of an individual’s—for example, a commissioner’s—or the Legislative Assembly’s jurisdiction or capacity. The reasons for each departure from the recommendations are detailed in each individual response.
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