Budget Crisis
05-May-2009
Neale Burgess, Liberal State Member for Hastings, said today: “The Brumby Government has been caught trying to hide the truth about its economic mismanagement from the community by using Federal Government money to make it look like the state is in surplus.”
Mr Burgess added: “John Brumby must have hoped that no one would notice that without the Federal funds, the numbers just don’t add up.”
Mr Burgess said: “The Labor Government has run up this debt despite it having squeezed a record $300 Billion in revenue from the pockets of Victorians.”
Mr Burgess said: “I didn’t think it was possible, but the budget papers confirm that 10 short years after the Cain/Kirner Labor Government bankrupted the state, the Brumby Government has plunged us even further into debt. Our debt will pass $31 Billion and exceed 10% of GSP by 2012.”
Mr Burgess added: “Just one year’s interest on that debt, would pay for the annual cost of Victoria’s entire Police Department.”
Mr Burgess said: “What this debt really means is that despite paying record taxes, stamp duty and fines, every man, woman and child now has a debt of more than $6000.”
Mr Burgess added: “This massive debt and interest bill will make it increasingly difficult for the Brumby Government to provide basic services for Victorians who are already struggling with a congested and unreliable transport system, too few hospital beds and not enough police to combat record levels of violent crime.”
Mr Burgess said: “Victoria’s critically important AAA credit rating, last lost by the Cain/Kirner Labor Government in the early 90’s, is again at serious risk.”
Mr Burgess added: “The question people should ask themselves is: After 10 years and $300 Billion in taxes and charges, what are 3 things Labor has done for them. It should be an easy question to answer, but its not.”
Mr Burgess said: “Even with $300 Billion income and more than $31 Billion debt; John Brumby still cannot find the money to improve the reliability or safety of the Frankston to Stony Point Rail Service or to install boom gates at the deadly rail crossings on that line. Likewise Labor has provided nothing to fix our dangerous roads and intersections or to shorten the long waiting list for a bed at the Frankston Hospital.”
Mr Burgess added: “It is disgraceful that the Brumby Government wasted more than $500,000 examining ways to fix the Frankston - Cranbourne Road and Moorooduc Highway Intersection and came up with the tin pot solution of a P Intersection!”
Mr Burgess added: “It is an insult to this community, that the Brumby Government can afford to spend millions of dollars on overseas junkets, but cannot find the money to provide a proper solution for a dangerous and ridiculously congested intersection.”
Mr Burgess said: “Maybe worst of all though is that instead of providing the police officers, so desperately needed by the Hastings Police Station, just to bring it up to the numbers it had 30 years ago, the Government has decided to close it at night.”
Mr Burgess said: “Incredibly, the Langwarrin-Carrum Downs Station that has not even been built yet has also been stripped back from Labor’s election promise of 24 to just 16 hours a day.”
Mr Burgess added: “Over night when the majority of crimes occur, these two critical police stations will sit in darkness. John Brumby obviously does not understand that criminals do not keep office hours!”
Mr Burgess said: “Frontline policing hours on the Peninsula have already been cut by an alarming 9, 576 hours or 18 percent since 2002; over the same period of time, violent crime has increased by 46.8 percent.”
There will be a rally and march to save the Hastings 24 hour station at the Hastings Foreshore on Thursday the 14th May 2009 at 11am. Neale Burgess – 03 5977 5600