Page 1822 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
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MR KAINE: We can amend your Supply Bill. We do not have to deny you supply. We can give you $230m and say, "Just get along with that until we decide whether you need any more". We are not obligated to give you every cent you ask for. We are not obligated to give it to you just because you ask. Oliver Twist asked for more and he did not get it, necessarily. We will have to start calling the Treasurer Oliver, I think.
To come back to where I started, it is incumbent upon this Government to start explaining to people what they are doing with their money. It is $1.2 billion a year, in round figures, and has been ever since self-government. It is taxpayers' money. How about you start telling us what you are doing with it. Do not ask us to administer a full anaesthetic and to perform surgery to get this information out of you. We should not even have to ask. If you had any sense, when you put that Bill on the table you would give us a comprehensive statement of why you want it, not a 10-line statement. There it is - it is not even a full page, and that is double spaced.
Why do you not tell us what you want it for? Why do you not do us the courtesy of explaining to us why you want $643m? If you did that, you would get a very courteous response. I am known for my courtesy. I am known for giving credit where credit is due. I have even told Mr Connolly that he is doing a good job once in a while. All you have to do is meet us halfway and we will not tell you that you are wrong and we will not tell you that you have not got it right. We will not even criticise you for not having a budget strategy if you tell us what you want to do with the money.
MS SZUTY (9.05): Madam Speaker, I intend to take a very similar line to that taken by Mr Kaine in his speech. I would like to ask the Chief Minister to address a number of issues in her speech in reply to this debate. The difference between the 1992-93 Supply Act appropriation and that for 1993-94 in this Bill is, as Mr Kaine pointed out, some $23m, and the Assembly is entitled to ask the reasons for this increase in supply over a 12-month period.
It is even more interesting for me to note that the ACT Treasury has lost nearly $2m on the amount it received last year in the Supply Act. The environment and conservation area of the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning is spending $231,000 less. Again, as Mr Kaine has pointed out, housing and community services has tightened its belt to the tune of $135,000; city services drops a massive $4.75m; fire and emergency services loses $610,000; public works and services, a large spending portfolio area, loses almost $26m - about 25 per cent of last year's Supply Act allocation; and government corporate services is down $300,000 on last year's Supply Act appropriation. I will be pleased to hear from the Chief Minister how and why these changes have come about and where the savings have been made.
I note also that the Treasurer's Advance has risen by some 50 per cent. The Chief Minister may also wish to explain this further. One of the big winners in this year's Supply Bill, accounting for about 25 per cent of the Supply Bill's increased appropriation from Consolidated Revenue, is the capital allocation for corporate development for the Department of Urban Services - an amount of $5.85m, which must surely equate to some major overhaul of technology in the department. I would be interested to hear what type of improvements are being made in the department and over what time period the department is looking at recouping this capital expenditure.
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