Mr BURKE - 2005-05-05
Given your stated generosity in your budget, can you explain why in this budget government departments are being asked to hand back 2% of their budget allocation during 2005-06 to your Treasury as an efficiency dividend, and I refer you to Budget Paper No 3 at page 8. This does not include Health, Education, Police and Justice but does include major sector service agencies such as Infrastructure, Business and Primary Industry. How can you justify asking your departments which are already struggling to deliver services to claw back 2% of their allocation to your Treasury coffers?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the Opposition Leader’s question seems to imply this has not happened before, but yes, it has. Had he looked at the budget last year, he would have seen the same thing.
Mr Burke: 1%.
Ms MARTIN: No, it was 2%. It is quite the norm and it is something that was there under the Country Liberal Party; you ask departments to become more efficient. Technology and better administration allow them to be efficient. We have given growth money to departments, and we are saying we also expect efficiencies. It is interesting that the opposition is saying we are spending far too much money on irrelevant things like Health, Education and Police and yet is griping to us when we say we want efficiency dividends. We are an effective and tight administration and we expect our departments to be, too.
We give growth money for specific areas. We have no shame about the $75m we put into Police to make our streets safer. Well done, Police minister; 120 more police on the beat. We have to pay for that, and we have the funds to do it effectively. I have no shame that we are putting money into training and secondary education in this budget. I say: ‘Well done, Minister for Employment, Education and Training’ because we need to have that. However, we can also say to our departments that we want to see efficiencies in the way they are run, and that 2% is nothing new.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, the Opposition Leader’s question seems to imply this has not happened before, but yes, it has. Had he looked at the budget last year, he would have seen the same thing.
Mr Burke: 1%.
Ms MARTIN: No, it was 2%. It is quite the norm and it is something that was there under the Country Liberal Party; you ask departments to become more efficient. Technology and better administration allow them to be efficient. We have given growth money to departments, and we are saying we also expect efficiencies. It is interesting that the opposition is saying we are spending far too much money on irrelevant things like Health, Education and Police and yet is griping to us when we say we want efficiency dividends. We are an effective and tight administration and we expect our departments to be, too.
We give growth money for specific areas. We have no shame about the $75m we put into Police to make our streets safer. Well done, Police minister; 120 more police on the beat. We have to pay for that, and we have the funds to do it effectively. I have no shame that we are putting money into training and secondary education in this budget. I say: ‘Well done, Minister for Employment, Education and Training’ because we need to have that. However, we can also say to our departments that we want to see efficiencies in the way they are run, and that 2% is nothing new.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016