With the Territory facing deep cuts and a potential freeze on the hiring of public servants, how much of the allocated $4.5 million has been spent so far for external accountants to find cuts and efficiencies in this year’s budget? Shadow Treasurer, Brendan Smyth, asked today.
“Ms Gallagher, has shown her inability to find any efficiencies in an over $3 billion budget, last year failing to find any savings - despite record deficits,” Mr Smyth said.
“Exactly how much has the Treasurer spent on her fly-in, fly-out razor gang? Is Ms Gallagher and Treasury making the decisions, or has she out sourced the responsibility and the work?
“With announcements made by the Treasurer last week for a freeze on ‘non-essential front-line public servants’, a re-negotiation of the Greens-Labor agreement and ‘re-evaluation’ of the government’s election promises, the question must be asked how many of these decisions were made by the Treasurer?
‘After eight years of ACT Labor reckless spending there is little room in the ACT budget for a decline in revenue like the shortfall of GST receipts.
“So just how much has Ms Gallagher spent on her fly-in, fly-out razor gang and will the difficult budget decisions be made by the ACT Treasurer or external accountants?” Mr Smyth concluded.
