8.
7.
SECRET
These programmes will achieve a dramatic improvement in the social infrastructure of the entire Colony by the early '80s. They are described in slightly expanded form in the Annex. They were adopted after prolonged and deliberately stimulated public debate outside and inside the Legislative and Executive Councils. The object was not only to secure acceptance of these material objectives, but also to capture the imagination of the population and to hold the Legislative Council and Government departments to a steady course.
9.
Some grumble that these plans are beyond the economy's capacity. The Government pitched them at what it considered the maximum given flexibility from year to year in case the state of the economy changed; but it is also legitimate to ask whether they should not be larger or faster. To get this sort of debate into perspective one must realise that these programmes, coupled with expenditure in other fields, have required such a rapid acceleration in the input of resources that at real or constant price terms the budget (by which I mean the Consolidated Account) has increased from $3,890 M in '72/73 to $6,400 M in
'76/77 and will reach $8,000 M in '79/80. I should emphasise these figures are corrected for inflation; so there will have been an increase in real goods and services provided of 106% over 7 years at an average annual rate of increase of 11%. The social component (i.e. housing, education, health and social welfare) also increases as a percentage of the budget from 37% in '72/73 to 40% in '76/77 and 48% in '79/80. The public sector's share of the Gross Domestic Product over the same period will have risen from 16% to just over 20% this year and to probably about 22.5% in '79/80.
The limitations on a faster rate of progress
10.
While the budgetary and other limitations on a faster speed or more extended field of advance are not absolute, they are real and must be clearly understood:
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