Garrett David: Budget Debate 
Garrett David: Budget Debate 
[Volume:655;Page:4299] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
 I have been listening with great interest to speakers from both major parties. When I came into the Chamber the Hon Tim Groser was very eloquently outlining the deterioration in the economy immediately prior to and following the election. I diverge from Mr Groser on the approach that the National Government has followed loosely known as a line by line analysis. In our view the Government is approaching things from completely the wrong end. It is starting at the bottom rather than the top and looking at the rats and mice if you will. When major savings are required in situations such as the one in which the country finds itself now the proper course of action surely is to look first at whether a programme or even a ministry is actually required and justifies the money spent on it. Let us take the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Families Commission just as examples. The approach should be to ask whether we need them at all. Do we need to spend this amount of money on this ministry or this programme? If the answer to that question is yes then surely the proper approach is to look at the programmes that that Ministry undertakes and evaluate which of them provide value for money. If some programmes remain after that exercise then it is probably appropriate to do a line by line review. 
But the ACT Party says whole areas of savings could and should have been made such as the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. Why do we say that? It is really quite simple. I think the budget of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is about $450 million. Let us ask the question: is that $450 million justified? Well we have just seen the back of our second female Prime Minister we currently have a female Chief Justice and we have had by my count—I think I am right—two female Governors-General. I said in the House on another occasion that the old phrase—and the language shows how old it is—that girls can do anything is indeed obvious. So in that situation why on earth do we need to spend $450 million on a Ministry of Women’s Affairs? 
What about the Families Commission? What does it do? I am not sure of its budget; I do not think it is $450 million. What does it do? What has it achieved? The only thing I have seen is a glossy booklet that tells readers that Pacific Island families tend to go for relationship advice first to their family and then to their church. My wife could have told the public that at no charge at all. It said that Caucasians particularly males of a certain age get their advice from mates down the pub. I could have told the public that for absolutely nothing. So the approach has been entirely wrong. 
But let us focus on one particular programme: the home insulation fund which consists of $323 million over the next 4 years. I confess quite happily that when I first saw this fund and we discussed it in caucus I thought it was pretty sensible. There is evidence—is there not—that insulation saves electricity and makes homes warmer. I even argued the toss about it. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I regret doing this but in order for the rest of the member’s speech to be informed I say that the budget for the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is $4.9 million not $419 million. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: That is not a point of order. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I was just trying to be helpful. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Rick Barker) 
: No that is not a point of order; that is a debatable point. The member is interrupting the flow of David Garrett’s speech. I invite David Garrett to continue. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: At first glance the insulation scheme seemed to be pretty sensible. But then when we look at it a bit deeper past the feel-good intentions and look at the actual facts we see—as with many things sadly—that the case for insulating homes at Government expense or with Government subsidy quickly falls apart. In an attempt to justify this expenditure both National and Green members talk about the benefits to be gained from using public money to insulate homes. They claim that doing so will reduce health risks lower energy consumption and create savings for families. Yet the very same study that National cites to justify this policy—the study that says that people reported improved health after their homes were insulated—also shows us another interesting side to the story: it tells us that despite people reporting that such a move results in better health general practitioner and hospital records fail to show substantive health benefits from the insulation of homes. 
I admit that I was surprised by that finding. The reality seems to be that although people may have felt healthier there is in actual fact no evidence that they were. There is no tangible statistic to prove that people’s health was really getting better. But despite that lack of evidence in these most straitened of times the Government is willing to waste over $300 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money—on the correction of the Hon Trevor Mallard almost 10 times the budget of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs—on a scheme that makes people feel healthier but has no effect beyond that. 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: It’s more than that: it’s nearly 100 times. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: The member is right: it is 100 times more is it not? It is 80 times more. One of the other reasons the Government uses to justify the home insulation fund is that the insulation will reduce energy consumption. Again I thought that that was a no-brainer. But again the facts show that what we think is the case is actually very very limited. The very same study the Government cites as proof of the benefits of this fund found that the power savings after insulation equated to about $50 a year per household. That means that the Government will spend over $300 million to make homeowners no healthier than they are now although they might feel better and to help them save $4.08 on their monthly power bills. That is not exactly value for money is it? 
But there is a more important point that seems to be missing from this debate: just because insulating people’s homes seems like a good thing to do and appears to have some benefit—but only on the surface—that does not mean that the Government should be doing it. Many things are good but it is not and never has been the role of the Government to deliver everything that people want. The role of the Government is to deliver things people need that they cannot provide for themselves—things that would never be provided in the absence of a Government. The police force is a good example of that. That is a public good and that is what the Government is there to deliver: public goods. The Government is not tasked with providing private goods. These are goods that people want that they could either provide for themselves or live without. 
The delivery of private goods is not the Government’s role; it is the role of the market and private business. In fact a Government that interferes in our lives like this is something to fear. After all a Government that is big enough to give people everything they want is also big enough to take it all away. 
A healthier approach to the Budget rather than people asking “What’s in it for me?” would be to ask “What is this going to cost me?”. I will quote the late great Frank Haden again: the Government has no money; it gets the money from the people. Every policy and every spending plan costs taxpayers. Far from providing benefits every spending plan places a cost on the private sector a cost that is ultimately borne by individuals and families. 
I will now come back to the topic of insulation. I would like to propose an alternative: rather than having more Government spending in order to ensure that homes are insulated why do we not require information about insulation to be placed on land information memorandum reports. Why not allow individuals to make these decisions? If insulation is really so valuable then people will be willing to pay more for it. If information about insulation were to be included on land information memorandum reports potential buyers would be able to negotiate a lower price with the vendor just as we can now negotiate a lower price in order to purchase a car that is without a current registration or warrant of fitness. Another argument we have heard to justify this spending is based on the issue of rental properties and the fact that there are now no incentives for landlords to insulate homes for their tenants. 
An alternative that involves a little bit of statism would be to require that landlords advertise whether their rental property has been insulated as well as the type of heating that has been installed in that property. A rental property that lacks insulation would on the logic of this policy be worth less than one that is just as a home with a garage is worth more than one without. Tenants would value a home with no insulation as being worth less than one that is insulated and would be able to negotiate the rent based on that fact.