The Opposition points to three alarming things about Labor’s budgetary strategy. Nothing is being done about the ACT’s expensive maladministration of health. Not enough is being done to wean ACTION off its disproportionate subsidies. And the large projected increases in debt.
The alarming thing for the Liberals, though, is that none of these things will cause much pain in the ACT before about 1997, some years after the next election. And politically it is not very satisfactory to say, “”We told you so from the Opposition benches.”
While Labor continues to flitter through the fiscal shopping arcade with a big Bankcard and continues to put the Bankcard bill in the 1997 file, the brats being clothed and fed are happy. While Labor happily spends in one year its unexpected $55 million gift from Uncle Paul, the brats will be contented. They would have yelled if Uncle Paul’s $55 million had been put into the bank for a rainy day.
The Budget papers show that the public-sector financing requirement in 1997-98 on present policies will be $107 million (about 8 per cent of revenue). That has to be borrowed. It cannot be taken from reserves because what little remains of ACT reserves will have been used up to help finance this year’s deficit.
Debt servicing in 1997-98 will be about $40 million at today’s prices (a little under half the rates revenue). The Liberals say that the ACT is on the path that Victoria and South Australia went down with very painful results in the long term. The Government says the ACT is in better shape that any of the other states. But that is because it is coming off a very recent clean slate. Besides the comparison hardly proves much.
The Liberals say the rot should stop. ACTION should be privatised and within three years its subsidy should be cut from about $40 million to $13 million. They say that if Woden Valley hospital were managed like any other major capital city hospital some $30 million could be saved by Year 3. And if workers’ compensation in the public-sector were privatised another $10 million would be saved by Year 3.
It is dryish, but the program is not a Fightback. Indeed, it has some similarities with One Nation in that it sells the major transport asset. Also it gives more to the arts and the aged, areas John Hewson ignored. And of more electoral importance Kate Carnell, unlike Hewson before the last federal election, does not hide her social reformism under a computer terminal. (However, she will have to keep some of the Ginninderra Goons under control.)
But is it good politics to actually state where you are going to cause some pain even if it is good medicine.
All the opinion polls in abstract say people want politicians with long-term vision who are financially responsible. All the election results, however, say that people want to feel good. All the opinion polls in abstract say people want constructive politicians with suggestions as to how we might solve our economic problems. But the election results show that people will vote for politicians who take the easy path or who play the politics of personality.
Where does that leave the Liberals? With a very hard job of convincing voters that the upset-nobody-now policies of Labor, if continued, will be more painful in the long run. And it is that much harder because the town is historically Labor.
Honestly now, how many people responsibly cut up the Bankcard before desperation sets in?