Socialist Party Australia - A socialist voice on the budget

The Socialist Party stands apart from Labor and Greens on the issue of the budget - the most important decision to be made on Yarra Council all year. Do we tick off on another neo-liberal cost-cutting budget (with millions still found however for the army of managers)? or is there a socialist alternative?
Regular column from Australia's first SP Councillor Stephen Jolly.

Yarra Council should be actively seeking to develop a People's Budget that reflects the needs of ordinary people in Yarra. This means encouraging real participation by residents, community groups and small businesses in the development of their budget. The Yarra Council 2005/6 Draft Budget has instead been developed by council in a process that is largely inaccessible to the people it will affect.

It calls for:

. A 5.9% increase in rate revenue. It is ironic that the Socialist Party is the only party opposed to the screwing of ratepayer's year in, year out for little in return by way of new initiatives by Council. It seems it is easier to raise money from ratepayers than take on the State and Federal government over cuts in grants to Council.

. $5.5 million for roads, but only $200,000 to improve family services including childcare.

. $2.2 million on advertising, publicity and for consultants - which is enough money to make meals on wheels free and still have $1.7 million left over.

We have great needs in Yarra, especially in childcare and on the three massive public housing estates. Therefore you would expect big initiatives in this budget, but there are none.

The budget proudly boasts of its good parts (many of which came from community and Socialist Party pressure on and outside of Council) - but there is much it doesn't report on - for example Yarra's vital Financial and Crisis Counselling service is to receive only $31,000 this year compared to $83,805 two years ago!

Government grants (from State and Federal government) have been cut by 2.7% this year. This long-term cutting of Council money must be challenged. However a Labor-led Council will not take on a State Labor government, especially with a State election next year.

$45 million is to be spent on wages but the budget papers do not make clear how much is on the mini-army of team leaders, co-ordinators and directors at Yarra, a Council that is top heavy with management. The community wants workers on the front line - for example there is no money for a second footpath trading officer, leaving only the one current officer to police over 1000 businesses.

$19 million is for capital works. Many of these projects are good but in some cases the priorities are wrong, with $5.5 million for roads, yet only $200,000 to improve infrastructure at child care centers.

$2.7 million is for debt repayment to the banks. This is being proposed even though Yarra hasn't got "relatively high borrowing levels for a Victorian metropolitan local authority", as the budget claims. In fact the State government recommends that total debt for a Council must be 60% of rate revenue or less - for Yarra this year it is only 29%.

While there is nothing wrong with Council reducing their debt, they have chosen to prioritize this over providing funding for essential services like child care, aged services and libraries.

This is just one example of how this Draft Budget puts money before people.

What could be done instead?

1. A less top heavy management structure and less spent on consultants would free up money for more socially-useful operating costs such as job creation for unemployed youth and lower fees for Council services.

2. A readjustment of the capital works away from roads and expensive projects like the nearly $1 million on information systems would add millions for use for three big projects that the Socialist Party stands for: A new child care center, a new North Fitzroy library, and a new indoor sports facility for Yarra. These three projects would be both a social and economic asset to Yarra.

3. A three year debt freeze would still leave Yarra ahead of State government guidelines and would allow about $10 million to be spent on progressive capital works projects such as the three the Socialist Party stands for. Even a slowdown in debt repayment could deliver $5 million.

Partially thanks to the recommendations of the Youth Advisory Committee, which was pushed for and chaired by SP Councillor Stephen Jolly there are new resources for holiday activities for young people in public housing; extra vacation care places; increased occasional child care, and more.

The extra $100,000 for a childcare is to be welcomed and was agreed to as a direct result of the growing community pressure on Council to act on the crisis. The test will come when the area of greatest need for childcare is identified: will Council then create a new childcare center or not?

This budget "has been prepared on the basis of constraint" and its Budget Principles include nothing about community need.

Council, despite calling itself left-wing, has prepared a right-wing (neo-liberal) budget. Since the end of the post-war economic boom in the early 1970s almost all western governments have begun the process of winding back conditions won in the past.

This 'neo-liberal' agenda has been carried though by governments on all levels through privatization, user pays, and cuts to services.

The fact is that though they are possibly slightly better on service delivery; Yarra Council is fundamentally no different from other Councils.

A Socialist-led Council would shift priorities towards ordinary people in Yarra as well as mobilising to fight the cost-shifting by government.