Page 916 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 25 July 1989
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Proposed new clause agreed to.
Clause 82 (Power of Minister to determine fees)
MR HUMPHRIES (9.52): I move:
Page 36, at the end of the clause add the following subclause:
"(2) At the same time the Minister causes the tabling in the Assembly of any determination of fees made pursuant to this section, the Minister shall also table -
(a) a document itemising each of the costs which the Minister estimates will be incurred in carrying out or giving effect to this Act, during the financial year in which the determination is made, and the next succeeding financial year; and
(b) an estimate by the Minister as to the amount that will be collected during the financial year in which the particular fee is determined, and the following financial year.".
This provides for certain provisions that deal with the costs incurred each year in the operation of this legislation and the registrar's activities, and the amount collected by the Government each year from the fees referred to in clause 82.
I am sure that the Government will warmly embrace this amendment as a step in the direction of open and consultative government. It provides that the Assembly and the public in general should have the capacity to monitor the extent to which the Government is keeping to undertakings it makes - in this case, that it will use the fees referred to and determined by the Minister under clause 82 only to recover the costs of administering the legislation, and nothing more.
If it were the case that the Government had a change of heart, which of course is entirely hypothetical, and decided not to tell us that it was going to collect fees at such a level as to raise general revenue from them, we would not know about that because nowhere in the budget papers - and I am sure my colleague Mr Kaine will confirm this - does it tell us exactly how much money will be raised by the collection of fees under the Pesticides Act. Nor is there any line item which says how much it will cost to administer the Pesticides Act or how much money is to be spent on the activities exclusively of the registrar of pesticides and the analysts and inspectors appointed under him.
It follows that we just do not know whether the Government is keeping to its undertaking to use only fees which it collects to pay the costs of this Bill, and nothing more. This amendment merely adds a new subclause which requires the Minister to table a document setting out, not in any
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .