Mr BURKE - 2001-11-27
Treasurer, table 2.1 in Budget Paper No 3 identifies your mini-budget has a bottom line deficit of $126m. Treasurer, if the Territory’s finances are as unsustainable as you claim with your alleged deficit of $106m, how can we afford a real deficit of $127m?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. First, I would like to say that I think that the former Chief Minister and the former Treasurer have really forfeited any rights to ask questions about budget matters - any right. It is a very serious issue and if the opposition does not understand the seriousness of what I am saying, then they simply deserve a very long time in opposition. The deceit that was perpetrated on Territorians in their last budget paper …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am not sure if it offends standing orders for the Chief Minister to be talking about deceit in answer to this question.
Madam SPEAKER: I think in the context of the statement, it was okay. The Chief Minister has been told not to direct ‘deceit’ against individual members.
Ms MARTIN: I am saying it against the opposition, Madam Speaker. This is a very serious issue. Today, we have presented a mini-budget that has integrity, and honesty within the numbers that have been presented. The last budget that was presented in this House had no honesty and no integrity. I think that, in a parliamentary sense, the member for Brennan, the now Leader of the Opposition, has forfeited any rights to ask questions about forward estimates, about deficits, because we saw what the last budget contained. It was a dishonest budget - a dishonest budget that tried to pretend in the run-up to an election that Territorians were only facing a $12m deficit for the coming financial year, the 2001-02 year.
I was Treasurer for less than a week before Treasury came to me and said: ‘That is not the figure, that figure is way over $100m ...
Mr Dunham: You are deceitful.
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I ask the member to withdraw the comment directed at the Chief Minister that she is deceitful.
Mr Dunham: It has been allowed, ‘Deceit’ is allowed.
Madam SPEAKER: No. I said not when it is attributed to an individual member. You are saying: ‘You are deceitful’, so I want you to withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the word ‘deceitful’ in relation to the Chief Minister.
Ms MARTIN: In less than a week after coming to office, this new government found out that the $12m figure was simply rubbish. It was simply a distortion. It was dishonest and, I believe, it was cheating Territorians. And then to find out that, not only that, but budget figures had been misrepresented, had been presented fraudulently in the budget paper to try to make it look as though in one instance Territory Health Services had had an increase in its funding. It just shows the levels to which the former administration would stoop, the absolute levels to which the former administration would stoop.
Mr Burke: Why is it now $126m deficit?
Ms MARTIN: I will answer the question. I should not answer this question because your dishonesty about budget papers has been fully exposed and you have no credibility when it talks about budgets ...
Mr Burke: $106m is unsustainable?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: $107m, not $106m. No wonder you were never Treasurer. $107m was the number that Percy Allan identified when we brought him in for his expert second opinion. The important thing about managing any forward estimates process and growing the Territory, is that we see a budget reduction, and we see deficit management over time. This is what this paper is about. These are honest numbers as opposed to the numbers we saw in the last documents to come in here, which the Treasurer purported to be budget documents. This is how one balances spending - which is something you previously never managed - the appropriate spending for the future, and also making savings. That is what this is about.
Not only was the budget $107m in deficit, but we have seen extra demands on that budget in the interim - demands that were never recognised. You gave appropriations to agencies that had no growth within them, at a time when growth was happening over 6%. Year after year, you allowed CEOs to come back, put their hand out and say: ‘I need more money’. You gave inappropriate allocations that did not reflect the growth, and we have had to make those variations since coming into government.
I am very sad to say to Territorians that we have a deficit this year of $126m. We are very sad to say that. It was larger because of the incompetence of the previous administration - the absolute incompetence and deceit of the previous administration. If you can read your budget papers, what we have is a very successful deficit reduction over the next three years. I say that in the year 2004-05 this Territory, under the Labor Martin government, will be in surplus.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. First, I would like to say that I think that the former Chief Minister and the former Treasurer have really forfeited any rights to ask questions about budget matters - any right. It is a very serious issue and if the opposition does not understand the seriousness of what I am saying, then they simply deserve a very long time in opposition. The deceit that was perpetrated on Territorians in their last budget paper …
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! I am not sure if it offends standing orders for the Chief Minister to be talking about deceit in answer to this question.
Madam SPEAKER: I think in the context of the statement, it was okay. The Chief Minister has been told not to direct ‘deceit’ against individual members.
Ms MARTIN: I am saying it against the opposition, Madam Speaker. This is a very serious issue. Today, we have presented a mini-budget that has integrity, and honesty within the numbers that have been presented. The last budget that was presented in this House had no honesty and no integrity. I think that, in a parliamentary sense, the member for Brennan, the now Leader of the Opposition, has forfeited any rights to ask questions about forward estimates, about deficits, because we saw what the last budget contained. It was a dishonest budget - a dishonest budget that tried to pretend in the run-up to an election that Territorians were only facing a $12m deficit for the coming financial year, the 2001-02 year.
I was Treasurer for less than a week before Treasury came to me and said: ‘That is not the figure, that figure is way over $100m ...
Mr Dunham: You are deceitful.
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker. I ask the member to withdraw the comment directed at the Chief Minister that she is deceitful.
Mr Dunham: It has been allowed, ‘Deceit’ is allowed.
Madam SPEAKER: No. I said not when it is attributed to an individual member. You are saying: ‘You are deceitful’, so I want you to withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the word ‘deceitful’ in relation to the Chief Minister.
Ms MARTIN: In less than a week after coming to office, this new government found out that the $12m figure was simply rubbish. It was simply a distortion. It was dishonest and, I believe, it was cheating Territorians. And then to find out that, not only that, but budget figures had been misrepresented, had been presented fraudulently in the budget paper to try to make it look as though in one instance Territory Health Services had had an increase in its funding. It just shows the levels to which the former administration would stoop, the absolute levels to which the former administration would stoop.
Mr Burke: Why is it now $126m deficit?
Ms MARTIN: I will answer the question. I should not answer this question because your dishonesty about budget papers has been fully exposed and you have no credibility when it talks about budgets ...
Mr Burke: $106m is unsustainable?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Ms MARTIN: $107m, not $106m. No wonder you were never Treasurer. $107m was the number that Percy Allan identified when we brought him in for his expert second opinion. The important thing about managing any forward estimates process and growing the Territory, is that we see a budget reduction, and we see deficit management over time. This is what this paper is about. These are honest numbers as opposed to the numbers we saw in the last documents to come in here, which the Treasurer purported to be budget documents. This is how one balances spending - which is something you previously never managed - the appropriate spending for the future, and also making savings. That is what this is about.
Not only was the budget $107m in deficit, but we have seen extra demands on that budget in the interim - demands that were never recognised. You gave appropriations to agencies that had no growth within them, at a time when growth was happening over 6%. Year after year, you allowed CEOs to come back, put their hand out and say: ‘I need more money’. You gave inappropriate allocations that did not reflect the growth, and we have had to make those variations since coming into government.
I am very sad to say to Territorians that we have a deficit this year of $126m. We are very sad to say that. It was larger because of the incompetence of the previous administration - the absolute incompetence and deceit of the previous administration. If you can read your budget papers, what we have is a very successful deficit reduction over the next three years. I say that in the year 2004-05 this Territory, under the Labor Martin government, will be in surplus.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016