10 May 2006

Budget surplus for the ACT?

| DT
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No link online yet (that I can find), but the ABC is reporting that Stanhope has “hinted” to the Assembly that the upcoming ACT budget will be in surplus.

Quite a turnaround on a projected $37 million deficit (or $190 million according to the Tories).

Word is the Arboretum’s getting shelved, for one.

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i believe that stanhope attended the professor norman lindsay economics school at uni. he received honours for his thesis on the magic pudding theory.

The Comrade bases his figures on the worth of certain government assets. i.e if they have an asset worth $30M, and debts worth the same, then he seems to think they cancel each other out.

The trouble with that is in order to liquify the asset they have to find someone willing to pay the $30M for the asset.

These will no doubt be bullshit figures put forward by a government with the fiscal control skills of a 4yo at a lolly sale.

Get some of the money from the minority pushing ‘pie in the sky’ things they plough coin into and back into things that matter such as roads, health, community safety and the way the town looks. Then we may listen

I had heard from various sources that the Arboretum was never going to happen… And am unsurprised, given the dollars required to do it properly. Pine trees don’t cost much in comparison…

GST windfall maybe useful…it’s a sad approach that is evident at the moment where govt is promising some grand projects (busaway and another botanical garden) and most likely have the interested parties salivating about the prospects of tendering for such large developments.

Then…the budget becomes the focus again. How can the CM go from a long period of time preparing the punters (who are taking notice I suspect) for a fair sized and undisclosed deficit, to backflip of another surplus (even a modest one).

For the love of…where is the consistency? Having your cake and eating it hasn’t been workshoped in the ACT I suspect.

Maybe the UN has pitched in some money to save the ACT from going bust?

Just heard that pay parking in canberra hospital and calvary will be from 6:30am-9pm 7 days a week 52 weeks a year including all sundays and public holidays, where part of the surplus may come from.

The ABC was playing some audio of the CM really sticking it to Brendan over this.

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