Page 6242 - Week 19 - Tuesday, 17 December 1991
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was hardly an argument that the same degree of latitude should not be given in connection with these movements. If this can be done from one year to the next, then perhaps we could agree to its being done within a year for movement between divisions and subdivisions of the appropriation.
So, with that in mind, I am prepared to accept a 3 per cent flexibility. And I must note that, in the health budget, even at 3 per cent, it allows a Minister to move around nearly $7m, which does not seem to me to be a bad degree of flexibility; and within the total education budget a Minister would still be able to move around in excess of $8m - or closer to $8.5m. Again, that does not appear to me to be a bad level of flexibility to allow a Minister. I am prepared to go that far.
I must admit that I have discussed this matter with only one member of the Assembly who is not a member of my own party, and I do not know what other members of the Assembly might feel on this matter. But I commend to them my foreshadowed amendment which would change the provision of a 5 per cent flexibility to a 3 per cent flexibility. That would allow us, perhaps over the next year or so, to observe what happens and see whether or not we want to extend it to 5 per cent or something greater perhaps, once we are satisfied that there remains adequate control over appropriated amounts.
MR MOORE (5.51): Mr Speaker, this is a matter which I discussed with Mr Kaine earlier when he suggested to me that an appropriate compromise in this situation was to allow 3 per cent. It is interesting that it has been unnecessary to have this sort of flexibility up till now. One cannot help wondering why it is that somebody would need a 5 per cent flexibility for moving money around the place, particularly the sorts of amounts that have been identified by Mr Kaine. It seems to me that there is already room for some flexibility; there is the Treasurer's Advance and that provides flexibility.
Mr Berry: It is different.
MR MOORE: There was an interjection from Mr Berry, saying, "It is different", and that is true; it is different from what is proposed here. However, a tremendously long process has been gone through to arrive at a very detailed assessment of where money is going to be spent over the next year. It seems to me that, if we allowed this to go through, it would be very easy for somebody to put forward the idea that money would be spent in a particular way, knowing all along that it was planned to move that money to somewhere else. It actually opens the system up to an entirely different way.
We must recognise that there is a catch in this, in that, as I recall, it will still be necessary for the Minister to inform the Assembly where this power has been used. I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Minister will still need to allow the Assembly to know about it and that there
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