Page 855 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 16 June 1992
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SUPPLY BILL 1992-93
Debate resumed from 21 May 1992, on motion by Ms Follett:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (8.32): On the face of it, the processing of an Appropriation Bill is almost a mechanical thing. The Government is entitled to ask the Assembly to authorise sufficient funds to keep the Government running until such time as the annual appropriation is approved by the Assembly. Traditionally the budget is presented around about August-September, and the Assembly gives it its endorsement approximately around November. So, again traditionally, the Supply Bill asks for enough money to last for about five months. So the principle is fairly simple.
But I must admit, Madam Speaker, that when I looked at this particular Supply Bill it took my breath away, because what it asks the Assembly to do is to authorise the expenditure of $619,682,800 - in round figures, $620m. When you look at that figure a bit you start thinking about it. This is for five months' worth of government, we are told. Madam Speaker, I looked at that figure and I thought, "Does it really represent five months' worth of government expenditure?". So I set about the exercise of proving to myself that it did. I did a few sums and I got some interesting answers.
If $620m represents five months' expenditure, then 12 months' worth is $1.488 billion. What this could be saying to me is that in the next fiscal year the Government intends to spend $1.488 billion. That is far more than any annual budget that I have been aware of before. It is considerably more than this year's budget, which was only $1.275 billion. There would be an increase of $213m from this year to next if that is the calculation that we are expected to make. That is a 16.7 per cent increase over this year's budget.
The Chief Minister has told us that following the Premiers Conference on Friday we have 6 per cent less money than we expected; yet, on the basis of this Supply Bill, one could assume that our expenditure is going to increase by 16.7 per cent. I can only conclude that that represents either a heck of a lot of new taxes or a heck of a lot of new borrowing. I wonder whether that is what the Government means anyway. What are the other options? I looked to see whether it was five-twelfths of the current year's expenditure. I notice that in the explanatory notes the Chief Minister tells us that this is to provide for five months of expenditure in accordance with existing policies, that is - I quote from the explanatory memorandum - "a continuation of the 1991-92 expenditure policies".
On that basis I went back and I looked at this year's budget. This year's budget, as appropriated by this Assembly, was $1.275 billion, in round figures. In fact it was $1,275,696,400. If you take five-twelfths of that you come up with a figure that is in fact $78m less than what we are now asked to appropriate. So it is obviously not five-twelfths of this year's budget. It clearly cannot be five-twelfths of next year's, because that would represent an enormous explosion in public expenditure. So, contrary to what the Treasurer told us when she tabled this document, we are being asked to approve $78m more than one would expect to be asked to appropriate, which is five-twelfths of this year's expenditure.
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