The "Clark Report" 1998

The following is the text of the speech by Robert Clark, MP at the annual "Clark Report" public meeting held at Box Hill Institute of TAFE on 5th November, 1998

Mr Chairman, my Parliamentary colleagues Phil Gude and David Davis, ladies and gentlemen -

In politics as elsewhere, trust matters.  In all areas of life, people want those providing a service to justify themselves. How much is it costing me?  Where is that money going?  Government is no different.  People voted for Members of Parliament on the basis of our election commitments and the expectations we created.   They are entitled to know how we are shaping up – to hold us to account – year by year as we act upon the trust conferred on us.

It is important that elected representatives are prepared to set out what they have done, why they are doing it, what they have learned, and what they intend to do next, and then invite the public to make a judgement on it.

This report is part of that process.  It is for this reason that the giving of an annual public report has become a firmly established tradition in this part of the world.

The past 10 years

As the letterboxed invitation to this meeting mentioned, this year is the 10th anniversary of my first election to the Victorian Parliament, so I would like to reflect a little on the events of the last 10 years and then, equally importantly, talk about where we should go as a community from here.

Our predecessors in government did some good things. I mention in particular getting started the revitalisation of the South Bank of the Yarra, and making significant improvements in the way children with disabilities are looked after. However, their last 4 years in office were a catalogue of decline for this State. VEDC, Tricontinental, State Bank are a familiar litany, and I don’t need to labour the point (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Perhaps even more damaging was the massive current account deficit clocked up by the government, with an ever increasing interest bill on the ever increasing debt undermining the ability of the State to provide money for services, including for those most in need.

I also need not repeat the steps taken by the present Government, with the support and acceptance of the community, to rebuild the State’s finances. Taxes were raised, expenditure and public sector employment were reduced, and unfunded superannuation and other liabilities were sorted out, so that we could live within our means and not leave a destitute state for our children to inherit.

However, at the same time, sweeping efficiency reforms meant that the vast bulk of the expenditure reductions fell on bureaucracy and inefficiency rather than the actual provision of services. Indeed, major improvements have been made to service quality in many areas even as spending has been reduced.

On the back of restoring the government’s own financial position came restoration of the Victorian economy. Investment was made welcome, red tape was cut, key areas such as automotive, food processing and information technology were identified. The Government took the lead in encouraging the public sector, the private sector, and each of us as individuals, to take advantage of the opportunities being opened up by information technology. Restructuring, and in many cases privatisation, of former government owned businesses reduced costs to users and made Victoria more competitive.

This has not just been something of interest to those in business, it has consequences for all of us. It has meant that Victoria’s unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 12.5% in June 1993 to 8.2% today. If we care for people who are doing it hard, the single best thing we can do for those who can work is to give them a job.

Indeed, it is important for governments to translate everything that they do into people’s everyday lives - to focus on what their actions actually mean for people. Life is often a hard slog – juggling family and work responsibilities, paying bills, worrying about the future. But step by step a good government can contribute to making many aspects of life better. So it is essential that people know not just what we have done but why we are doing it.

Actions based on beliefs

The things that the present Government does stems from our core beliefs, beliefs which are in tune with Australian traditions: common sense, decency, a fair go, reward for hard work, the importance of strong communities and families, and rights being matched by responsibilities.

So when the Government reforms government businesses, and privatises some of them, it is because it is common sense that such businesses can’t be run well out of Ministers’ offices, with no effective discipline on managers and with the taxpayer taking all the risks of wrong decisions, and because it is common sense that we can use the proceeds of privatisation to reduce our interest bill and free up funds for other things.

When we introduce standards and testing in schools, build $140m of Additional Special Needs funding into School Global Budgets, and spend more on Education Maintenance Allowances than any other State, it is because we believe in good education delivering opportunity, and delivering that opportunity for all.

When we revitalise local government and build new health centres and hospitals around Melbourne’s growing urban fringe, it is because we believe in strong communities and providing services to people in their communities.

When the Government introduces a 24 hour telephone help line for parents, commits $100m to provide support for carers, accelerates the move to community based living for people with disabilities, and provides $5.3m for a shelter for homeless men to replace that infamous institution "The Gill", it is because we believe in giving a hand to those who need it.

When we establish the Turning the Tide anti-drugs strategy or the Freeza alcohol and drug free concerts for young people, its because we believe in opportunity for our young people matched by responsibility.

When we reduce water charges, or introduce the Winter Power Bonus, or cut stamp duty on home purchases, it is because we believe that more efficient government is not just an end in itself, but something that should provide tangible benefits for all Victorians.

Unlike others, we have not worn our hearts on our sleeves, we have not boasted of our care and compassion; instead we have set about doing things that will actually make life better for the community, including the poorest and most disadvantaged.

Sir Robert Menzies and the "Third Way"

Our beliefs flow from our values. They are values that date back to the foundation of the Liberal Party by Sir Robert Menzies. In a speech in July 1942, Sir Robert rejected on the one hand the motto "each for his own and the devil take the hindmost" and on the other hand the notion that life owes the individual complete protection and security while the individual owes life nothing at all. He pointed to the pioneer qualities of hard work and self-reliance and to the dry rot of social and political doctrines that encourage the citizen to lean on the State and discourage thrift.

However, Sir Robert also pointed to the need for a sense of social justice and social responsibility. He argued that a balance was required, and summed it up by saying that "To every good citizen the State owes not only a chance in life but a self-respecting life."

There has been a lot of talk lately about a "third way" for government - not socialist, not solely focussed on the financial bottom line - and about civil society - valuing the role of non-government institutions in society - clubs, charities, societies and associations.

There is much merit in this, but it is really just another generation rediscovering what Sir Robert Menzies was referring to all those years ago, and what most of us here in this room have long valued - a fair go, self-reliance and pitching in to help others in need.

Expectations move on as needs are met

It is a feature of the human nature that we all have a pyramid of needs, starting with the most basic, and building up from there. Australians have fortunately never lacked for the absolute essentials of freedom from war in our own country, or mass starvation. Relatively few have lacked basic food, shelter, clothing or medical treatment.

However, in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s we certainly were severely lacking in financial security, both as individuals and as a State. That was our top priority. Now that our finances and economy have been stabilised, our attention moves to other needs - in particular to the quality of the services the Government provides - education, health, transport, conservation, etc.

The challenge for Government over coming years will be to continue to respond to the expectations of the community, while ensuring that as a community and as a government we don’t fall into the trap of once again over-committing ourselves and prejudicing our economic security and prosperity.

Increased spending and service improvements

Indeed, responding to the community's expectations is what the Government has been doing. There is a common misconception that the present Government has cut spending on education, health and social services. But the facts directly contradict that. I have included with my written report distributed this evening a few charts which show the position very clearly:

In the first few years following the change of government, spending was certainly cut. But in recent years spending in these key areas has surged and has more than offset the reductions. In current terms, spending on education is 4 per cent higher in real terms than in 1991-92, and in health 18.3 per cent higher. [Budget Paper No. 2, p.7]

If you allow for capital spending, which the previous government cut to the bone, the increase is even more dramatic - a real increase of 11.5% in education, and 23.7% in health and human services. In the year to June, we spent $4.03 billion on education, compared with $3.32 billion in 1991-92, an increase in real terms of 11.5%. In health and human services, we spent $5.59 billion, compared with $4.16 billion in 1991-92, a real increase of 23.7%.

However, one fundamental difference between 1991-92 and now is that now we can afford to spend that much, then we couldn’t.

And the main reason we can afford to spend more now is that our interest bill is down as a result of the Government’s reforms and privatisations. In 1991-92, 16c of every dollar of State Government revenue and current grants was spent on interest; now only 5.1c is [Budget paper No.2, p113]. That has meant almost 11c in every dollar has been freed up for doing things for people - more services or lower taxes.

The quality of services in other areas has also been significantly raised. Train and tram punctuality is up, graffiti is down, crime and violence are well down as a result of transit police. Now the franchising reforms will take that a step further.

We have just recently had the announcement of the extension of the tram line from Mont Albert to Box Hill, which will cement Box Hill’s role as a transport hub and greatly improve accessibility for the TAFE and Hospital. Like City Link, that is something that in public hands was always a good idea, but there was never enough money to pay for it. Now we can afford it because the private sector will put up the capital and do the work, and recoup its cost through the normal ticket revenue and the general public transport subsidy from Government.

The challenges ahead

So what are the challenges which we will have to face over coming years, both Governments and all of us as a society?

Continuing to improve services and cut taxes

The first challenge for government will be to continue to improve services and cut taxes. As our economy continues to grow, and our reforms continue to reduce costs, we can expect to have funds available for tax reductions and more spending. Our goal is to reduce our taxation levels to below the Australian average. That perhaps doesn’t sound like much, but Victoria and NSW have traditionally competed for the title of Australia’s highest taxing State, because of Commonwealth Grants Commission subsidies.

Sometimes improving services requires spending more money, sometimes it just involves doing things better. We need to avoid falling into the trap of trying to measure the quantity of a service provided by the amount of dollars spent on it. Victoria’s TAFE system, for example, is generally regarded as the best in the country, but it is also one of the lowest cost. It works well because it responds to what industry and commerce need, and because it gives the authority to TAFE institutes like the one we are in tonight to get on with the job, rather than being burdened down with control from head office. In other words, it succeeds because it does things better.

The Courts

But there remain other areas where there is still room for reform. Since it involves my former profession in the law, I mention the courts as one example. A lot has been done in law reform, and in computerising the court system. But courts can still hardly be regarded as user friendly. Justice will always be expensive, because it takes time to go over disputes in great detail to try to work out the truth. But there are probably ways in which it can be done a lot smarter than it is now, and full credit is due to our Attorney-General for what she is trying to do in this area while still respecting the independence of the court system.

Schools

On the other hand, and I say it not just because Phil Gude is here, with education we are doing pretty well.  Standards have been raised, curriculum reformed, schools refurbished and extended.

In our area, all primary schools have had significant amounts spent on improvements. Boroondara Park is on a new campus, started under previous government, completed under the present Government. Greythorn, Balwyn, Box Hill North, Chatham, Kerrimuir, and Surrey Hills Primary Schools have had capital works or major maintenance funding. Most recently Mont Albert Primary School has been put on the capital works forward planning program.

All are in far better shape than in 1992. However, this is not the end of road - we always aim for better. Chatham Primary School is experiencing problems arisng from its very success and growth.  It has a bright, clean, refurbished main building, but 11 of 15 classes are in temporary accommodation.  Box Hill Senior Secondary College, the former Box Hill Technical School, has superb vocationally oriented courses drawing students from all over Melbourne, but it needs maintenance.   I know that. I make sure the Minister knows that.   But the Minister and Government have already cut the maintenance backlog of $670m in 1992 by around 2/3rd today, and the Minister is working to totally eliminate the backlog and put in place funding arrangements so that it never returns.

The Minister has also put in place thorough and objective systems to make sure that each school’s needs are assessed on their merits and that each school gets its funding in order of priority. My job as local Member is therefore not to pull strings to help local schools jump the queue, it is to help local schools put their case as clearly and lucidly as possible and make sure all the relevant facts are on the departmental records. I am confident that both Chatham’s and Box Hill Senior Secondary’s needs will be met as speedily as possible.

Health

Health and human services are more difficult areas. In fact, we have achieved a lot. The number of patients treated in Victoria’s public hospitals has increased by 45% since 1990-91 [Budget Paper No.2, p.67] to 961,000 in the year to June.

Unacceptable waiting times for urgent patients have been virtually eliminated, and for semi-urgent patients they have been dramatically reduced. For example, at Box Hill hospital in July 1993, the waiting list for semi-urgent cases stood at 408. By December last year, the number had fallen to 165, a fall of almost 60%. Even more significantly, between 1 July 1993 and 1 January 1998, the number of patients waiting more than 90 days (the accepted benchmark) for semi-urgent treatment has been reduced from 171 to just 1 patient.  The hospital treated 12% more patients in 1997-98, and has met all waiting list and emergency treatment targets.

There has also been a Government commitment to massive investment of over $900m in new public hospitals, including 3 totally new hospitals at Knox, Berwick and Epping.  Box Hill hospital has had a new accident and emergency redevelopment, and major ward refurbishments, maternity being the most recent.

There is a move to greater private sector involvement in our public hospitals, under which the private sector runs a public hospital on the same terms as any other public hospital is run - Latrobe regional hospital at Morwell, Mildura hospital are two examples. It is sometimes said that you can’t be private and care, but most people here have a GP whom we know and trust - you can hardly get a better example of a private sector provider who cares.

However, despite what has been achieved, always more can be spent on hospitals, always more can be spent to help those with disabilities or infirmities.  Responsibility for hospitals straddles 2 levels of government. While that continues, it is vital that the funding arrangements between the 2 levels be logical and fair. That is why the State Government made such a fuss about the Medicare renegotiations. It was not an abstract issue between State and Federal governments, but went to the heart of the quality of hospital services people in Victoria receive. It is very pleasing that we were able to negotiate a final agreement which substantially improved on the original Commonwealth offer.

However, we probably need to go further. At the moment our health system is out of balance. We have unlimited funding for visits to GPs and other doctors through Medicare, and for subsidised medicine from the chemist. But we have set funding for hospitals. If you go to the doctor, the Commonwealth pays all the government cost. If you go to a hospital, the cost is split 50-50 between Commonwealth and State.

This leads to silly rules such as that the State can’t allow a GP clinic to be established on hospital land, because that would shift cost to the Commonwealth, even though it would drastically cut casualty waiting times if most of the patients could see a GP first, and then be transferred to the casualty department if the doctor found they were seriously injured.

It is for reasons like this that Victoria has put forward the case that the Commonwealth should take over total responsibility for hospitals, so it is can do something about these artificial restrictions and divisions. On the other hand, we have proposed that non-university education become totally a State responsibility, instead of having thousands of people in a Commonwealth Department of Education that doesn’t educate a single child.

Federal - State relations

That leads to the second of our key challenges for the future, Federal-State relations. Across the board, in health, education, housing, welfare and roads, State and Federal public servants and Ministers spend hours negotiating over the terms of the agreements under which the Commonwealth government provides funding to the States.

The Feds say the States can’t do anything properly unless the Feds tell us how to do it. We say the Feds get in the way of us doing the job properly. Each level of government blames the other for any problems or funding shortages. It is not a sensible way to run governments.

The basic rule should be that each level of government is responsible for raising the funds to pay for the spending it undertakes, and each level of government should stop trying to tell the other level how to do its job. We have made a good start on this with the Commonwealth’s tax reform package, which will give the States far greater funding certainty provided the Commonwealth can be locked in to handing over the GST proceeds to the States, and will eliminate a lot of inefficient taxes, including FID and BAD and stamp duty on mortgages and shares. However, we also need to rationalise State and Commonwealth service responsibilities, such as in health, and get rid of Commonwealth grants to States with strings attached.

Continued public service reform

A third key challenge for Governments is continued public service reform. Public service numbers were reduced from around 195,000 in June 1992 to around 151,000 by June 1997 [1997-98 Budget Paper No.2, p.80]. The general standard of our public service has gone up. It is more responsive. It gives better advice. But we can do better - the gap between policy and implementation is still too great, and many of the issues that turn up in the media have been ones of implementation rather than policy.

Refining contracting out arrangements

A particular aspect of this is to continue to refine contracting out arrangements, including the specification of contract terms and issues of what should be public, and what should be confidential. In Victoria, we are at the cutting edge of the use of contracting out, and so people are still learning. Unfortunately, a few failures can give the whole process a bad name, especially when the dedicated critics get going.

Also, we expect more of services once they are provided by the private sector rather than public. For example, with electricity, the average annual time off supply is down from 510 minutes in 1989-90 [Office of the Regulator-General Electricity Performance Report - July 1996 - Dec 1996 / Jan and Feb 1997 (June 1997) p.6] to 199 minutes in 1997 [Office of the Regulator-General Electricity Distribution Businesses - Comparative Performance for the Calendar Year 1997 (July 1998)]. But we tend to remember every interruption more when the suppliers are privately owned. Fortunately, the electricity companies are responding, for example United Energy is aiming to cut time off supply to 120 minutes per year.

It usually the fact that successes get less attention. But take library hours as a clear example of the benefits of the competitive tendering process. Our libraries are now open on weekends, both in Whitehorse and Boroondara. Eltham even has a coffee shop in its library.

Family and community values

A particularly important challenge I would mention this evening is that of family and community values. We have serious problems in this area. Too many people’s lives are in a mess, and they are hurting not just themselves but others. We learn about it most often when we read court reports of street kids, drug taking, child abuse, domestic violence, or family murders, and we ask ourselves how people could ever come to live such lives?

Victoria has the highest level of expenditure on child abuse reporting and prevention of any state. We introduced mandatory reporting of child abuse, and we are now intervening to protect even more children than before.

But the key question is why is it happening in the first place? Why is there such a significant minority of our population that is prepared to seriously hurt innocent young children? Some say the extent of the problem was always there, we simply didn’t recognise it. However, I don’t believe that. For sure, there will always have been some child abuse, but two generations ago you didn’t get the anecdotal reports of serious abuse being disclosed to teachers, and you didn’t get the level of court cases for murder and serious assault on children.

Others say the causes are economic - unemployment and associated stress. But our economic conditions today are nothing compared to those of the ‘30’s, yet the great depression didn’t result in the abuse, or the crime, that we experience today.

Still others blame it on society not caring enough for those who are less fortunate. There is some element of truth in that, but not in terms of dollars. The dollar value of our welfare support, both Commonwealth and State, is far higher now than in the 30’s, even fully taking into account the enormous rise in living standards between now and then. Rather, the element of truth is that there is a difference between the material support that a society can give and the human concern, compassion, friendship and support that fellow human beings can give.

The conclusion is that we have to look for the explanation of the problem in our social mores - our individual personal behaviour towards others, how we bring up our children, in the values we teach our children, how well we know and help our neighbours, how much we participate in the life of our local community.

These are fundamentally not problems that governments can solve. Indeed, it would be counterproductive simply to leave it to governments to try to solve them. Each of us as individuals need to take these problems on board and ask what we can do in our own lives, in the lives of other family members and neighbours, and in the life of our local community, to change the way we live.

What governments can do is similar to what governments can do about natural disasters like bushfires - to identify danger areas, to warn, to give advice, to take preventative action where possible, to intervene quickly and effectively where damage occurs or is threatened, and to support and help the victims.

Standards of public debate

The final challenge I would mention, and another one which we all face, is to raise the standard of public debate in this country.

The dross that gets reported as serious issues is appalling. Ministers and individual Members of Parliament spend hours responding to harebrained allegations, reducing the time available for constructive work and thinking. If Governments or individual MPs fail to serve the public as best we can, we deserve to be brought to account, but not for manufactured failings, or scare tactics, or simplistic analyses.

Journalists and radio comperes have got into the habit of boosting their own standing by putting down politicians. If there is lots of incompetence and skullduggery which I can expose for you, then you ought to keep buying my newspaper or listing to my radio program.    But the problem is that if stunts and wild claims get reported and good work doesn’t, politicians will be forced to resort to stunts, and good work will get overlooked.   It becomes a vicious cycle in which both political standards and public regard for the political process get degraded, and the only winners are the media proprietors who continue to make money out of ever more sensationalist coverage.

In the end, the only remedy to all of this is if the public, particularly the politically active public, are prepared to demand better standards of both media and of politicians, and are prepared to switch their votes, and more importantly their reading and viewing, if they don’t get the standards they expect.

Conclusion

I have often been asked over the past 10 years what it is like to be in political life. The answer is it has been challenging, demanding, often frantic. Working with Alan Stockdale as his Parliamentary Secretary, both in Treasury and Multimedia, has never left me short of things to do. But it has been very satisfying to see the benefits of the changes made by the government emerge not only with the resurgence of the Victorian economy, with major construction products and rapidly growing exports, but also at a local level with the refurbishment and upgrades to schools, continued improvements at our hospital, a growing and successful TAFE college, and most recently the announcement of the long awaited extension of our tram line.

A lot has been achieved over the past 10 years, but a lot remains to be achieved. With your support, I look forward to continuing to help tackle the challenges that lie ahead of us to make Victoria an even better place in which to live, work and raise a family.