Page 4545 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Then suddenly the Leader of the Opposition, thinking that she is on a winner, jumps on the band wagon. The fact is that it is correct that the Treasurer's Advance is for unexpected and unplanned for expenditure. That is exactly what it is for and, when we know the nature of the expenditures that we have to make out of it, we are obliged to inform the Assembly, and we will.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (5.29): Mr Kaine has worked himself into a state of high dudgeon there. But he has answered neither of my questions. I get in early, because he does have another opportunity to do so. He has told us, which was not really news, that the Treasurer's Advance is for use on largely unexpected expenditure. My question therefore is: How come so much of it has been used for salaries and payments in the nature of salary? My second question is: Will your shortfall in the government schooling appropriation be made up from the Treasurer's Advance? Have a little think about it, pop across and ask Dr Madden, and then answer it when you get a second go.
MR KAINE (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (5.30): I do not need to ask Dr Madden. That question has already been answered.
MR WOOD (5.30): Mr Speaker, I do not know whether to thank the Chief Minister for his unnecessary lecture. The Treasurer's Advance is no mystical concept to anybody. Let me go back a year. I recall the present Chief Minister standing on this side of the chamber last year and being told, in words of one syllable, quite a few fundamental features of the budget. Do you remember that?
Ms Follett: We had to adjourn for 15 minutes while he found the place.
MR WOOD: That is correct. And he has the cheek to stand up here today and read us all a lecture about a very fundamental concept of the budget. It is, frankly, nonsense. It arose only because Mr Duby, who may not know himself, tried to be smart and pass the question back again, which is not a novel way of handling things either. So we do not need these lectures, thank you very much. If we come to this matter now, it is an entirely appropriate time to ask the questions that Ms Follett asked.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (5.31): I cannot let that blatant attack by Mr Wood go past. The reason that the debate was adjourned last year was that the format of the papers presented by the previous Government made them indecipherable, and you know it. They were absolutely indecipherable. No-one - - -
Mrs Grassby: The papers were put together by the same public servants that put these together, so it must be public servants that are at fault.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .