Mr BURKE - 2001-11-28
Why was the column that identified departmental staffing levels in the May Budget Paper No 2 dropped from the presentation of yesterday’s mini-budget? Was it because providing such information would have revealed the true extent of the job cuts that will result from your public service restructure?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. It is interesting to listen to the comments of the member for Brennan about this important mini-budget. He wasted the best part of 40 minutes in here this morning simply by his denial of what this entire mini-budget process was about. The mini-budget was only needed because of the dishonest budget that was presented here in May. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition who demonstrates, increasingly, that he has very little grasp on budgetary matters, go on about first of all, we’re going to lose 500 public servants and then it grew to 1000 public servants ...
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: ... and this morning it grew to 1500 public servants. It demonstrates, only too clearly, that the Leader of the Opposition and his rabble who join him, do not understand what this mini-budget is about. The denial is very substantial. What we have is a mini-budget that tackles the problems that you left Territorians and you deny that you left Territorians. The staffing was in the May budget ...
Mr Burke: Why is the column on staffing missing, that is the question.
Ms MARTIN: Well, I think there should be some logic that this mob can apply, that we have just had a major change to our public sector agencies and these are still working through the system. If you listened to the speech I gave - and I hope you did yesterday and read your budget speeches - there are still aspects of this change to our agencies that are working through. Let me just put the bottom line of the question from the Leader of the Opposition. The bottom line is that you are trying to go into the Territory public sector and say: ‘Be scared, public sector employees, be scared’. You are just like Henny Penny with the skies falling in. It is the Henny Penny from Brennan with the skies falling in.
We have made it very, very clear there are savings to be made over the final consumption expenditure of government. In real terms, it grows 3.4% over the next four years. We are going to make savings because, let us be very real about this, who left the hole in the budget? Who left the hole in the budget? It was the dishonest former government who tried to tell Territorians that there was just a ...
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! She cannot use that word ‘dishonest’ in relation to the former government.
Madam SPEAKER: No, that is okay, we said you could. No, there is no point of order.
Ms MARTIN: There is no point of order. It was the dishonest former government that did not tell Territorians. And surprise, surprise, in the run up to an election when the CLP’s saying: ‘Don’t trust this other mob, they’re not responsible financial managers’, who were the irresponsible financial managers? It was the CLP with the contempt of nearly 27 years in government We have made it very clear to public servants and very clear to CEOs that there are no forced redundancies over this next three-year period that this budget covers. There is no program of voluntary redundancies, there are no job losses.
Mr Reed: There is a program of not filling vacancies.
Ms MARTIN: You cannot understand that because the CLP oversaw the very vicious Expenditure Review Committee process in the early 1990s - a very vicious process. That is the only kind of concept you have - vicious slash and burn. You cannot come to terms with the fact that this mini-budget is a careful management budget. This is about carefully managing the process over the next four years. Let me assure the opposition, whose Leader wasted his time this morning in the comments he made, that we will reach a surplus by 2004-05 and we will have the budget properly managed, in stark contrast to what has happened over the last few years and, particularly, the previous two-and-a-half years under the chief ministership of the member for Brennan.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. It is interesting to listen to the comments of the member for Brennan about this important mini-budget. He wasted the best part of 40 minutes in here this morning simply by his denial of what this entire mini-budget process was about. The mini-budget was only needed because of the dishonest budget that was presented here in May. We have heard the Leader of the Opposition who demonstrates, increasingly, that he has very little grasp on budgetary matters, go on about first of all, we’re going to lose 500 public servants and then it grew to 1000 public servants ...
Members interjecting.
Ms MARTIN: ... and this morning it grew to 1500 public servants. It demonstrates, only too clearly, that the Leader of the Opposition and his rabble who join him, do not understand what this mini-budget is about. The denial is very substantial. What we have is a mini-budget that tackles the problems that you left Territorians and you deny that you left Territorians. The staffing was in the May budget ...
Mr Burke: Why is the column on staffing missing, that is the question.
Ms MARTIN: Well, I think there should be some logic that this mob can apply, that we have just had a major change to our public sector agencies and these are still working through the system. If you listened to the speech I gave - and I hope you did yesterday and read your budget speeches - there are still aspects of this change to our agencies that are working through. Let me just put the bottom line of the question from the Leader of the Opposition. The bottom line is that you are trying to go into the Territory public sector and say: ‘Be scared, public sector employees, be scared’. You are just like Henny Penny with the skies falling in. It is the Henny Penny from Brennan with the skies falling in.
We have made it very, very clear there are savings to be made over the final consumption expenditure of government. In real terms, it grows 3.4% over the next four years. We are going to make savings because, let us be very real about this, who left the hole in the budget? Who left the hole in the budget? It was the dishonest former government who tried to tell Territorians that there was just a ...
Mr DUNHAM: A point of order, Madam Speaker! She cannot use that word ‘dishonest’ in relation to the former government.
Madam SPEAKER: No, that is okay, we said you could. No, there is no point of order.
Ms MARTIN: There is no point of order. It was the dishonest former government that did not tell Territorians. And surprise, surprise, in the run up to an election when the CLP’s saying: ‘Don’t trust this other mob, they’re not responsible financial managers’, who were the irresponsible financial managers? It was the CLP with the contempt of nearly 27 years in government We have made it very clear to public servants and very clear to CEOs that there are no forced redundancies over this next three-year period that this budget covers. There is no program of voluntary redundancies, there are no job losses.
Mr Reed: There is a program of not filling vacancies.
Ms MARTIN: You cannot understand that because the CLP oversaw the very vicious Expenditure Review Committee process in the early 1990s - a very vicious process. That is the only kind of concept you have - vicious slash and burn. You cannot come to terms with the fact that this mini-budget is a careful management budget. This is about carefully managing the process over the next four years. Let me assure the opposition, whose Leader wasted his time this morning in the comments he made, that we will reach a surplus by 2004-05 and we will have the budget properly managed, in stark contrast to what has happened over the last few years and, particularly, the previous two-and-a-half years under the chief ministership of the member for Brennan.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016