Page 1818 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
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this was going to be a tough year. The Grants Commission recommendation has merely reinforced that, and we have not yet had one word from the Government to tell us how they are going to cope with next year's budget. The message seems to be: Keep them in the dark, tell them nothing, and they will not notice when the bills go up and the services are reduced.
I believe, and I have tried to emphasise this to the Government for some time as the nature of the problem has become more and more apparent, that there is a need for full and complete disclosure by this Government, so that everybody knows the nature of the problem and what they can expect to bear in order to bridge the gap. It should not be necessary, certainly with a government that claims to be a consultative government, to have to extract information from it almost under the effects of a full anaesthetic. You simply can get nothing out of them in response to questions, and they volunteer nothing.
Within the next two sitting days the Public Accounts Committee will be tabling a report on budget supplementation, and one of the things we will be highlighting is the inability of almost everybody to know how the Government is managing its budget. Even with the reports that are required to be tabled under the Audit Act and other legislation, it is impossible to set those reports down side by side with the original budget appropriated by this Assembly and find out what the Government is doing with the money. There is a total exercise that runs throughout the entire fiscal year where the Government obscures the facts. They are not prepared to tell us. They are not even prepared to tell this Assembly how they are managing. If you do not believe me, try asking the Minister for Health a couple of questions about how his budget is going.
Mr Berry: You get a good answer.
MR KAINE: We never get an answer from the Minister about what he is doing with the budget. Why is it that the Government seems to have embarked on a deliberate program of obfuscating the issue, denying people information about what they are doing with the taxpayers' money? Why can they not answer a simple question in question time? Why can they not table from time to time a report that tells us what is happening? No, that is not the way they work. If you do not believe me, have a look at the Supply Bill.
The Chief Minister tabled the Supply Bill three weeks ago, and she tabled it with what has to be one of the shortest speeches on record - less than a page in the proof copy of the Hansard. What is the bottom line of this Supply Bill? She is expecting the Assembly to approve $643m, in round figures. Does the Government tell us what they want the money for? Absolutely not. Members may remember back a year ago, when the last one was tabled. The Treasurer tabled it with, again, almost the shortest speech on record. There was a little statement in the middle of it that led to some considerable debate. The Chief Minister then told us, and I quote from Hansard of Thursday, 21 May 1992, page 687:
The amounts for each program represent approximately five months' expenditure ...
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