Page 1823 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 15 June 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I look forward to hearing the Chief Minister's explanation on the areas of change from last year's Supply Act to the 1993-94 Bill. Such an explanation will give the Government an opportunity to place before the community more information about government priorities and programs. In building the reputation of the Assembly as a parliament which is fiscally responsible and which is able to justify its spending priorities, it is important to make the maximum effort to ensure that the ACT community also understands these priorities. In conclusion, I would like to say that I take pleasure in supporting the Government's 1993-94 Supply Bill, once again renewing the pledge I made to the electorate before the 1992 election to guarantee stable government by guaranteeing passage of the Supply Bill.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (9.08), in reply: I thank members for the comments they have made on the Supply Bill. Can I say at the outset that I believe that my speech introducing the Supply Bill is about the same length as Mr Duby's at the time he was Mr Kaine's Minister for Finance. In 1991, when he introduced the Supply Bill, it was also a very brief statement. They have traditionally been quite brief statements.
I would like to address the issues that members have raised. On the general question of why the estimates for some programs are more in 1993-94 supply and for some programs are less, the supply estimates are based on the Government's policies that exist at the time the Supply Bill is drawn up. Therefore, it is really not appropriate to compare supply estimates in one year with those for another year. When preparing their supply estimates, all agencies actually have regard to the cash requirements for each program, taking into account the most up-to-date forward estimates that are available to them. This includes policy changes that were announced in the budget after the previous year's supply was introduced and passed and policy changes that have been made since the budget and forward estimates were actually published.
Agencies also take into account the timing of payments in developing the supply estimates, and that is a big factor for this current Supply Bill. As program managers are dealing with a wide variety of contractual arrangements, changes in payment arrangements can be expected from one year to the next. Other timing issues such as the delivery dates of major items of equipment cause the supply estimates to differ from one year to the next. For example, the scheduling of delivery dates for the bus replacement program has resulted in a capital cash requirement of $7.9m for public transport in 1993-94, which compares to $5.3m in 1992-93. That is a timing issue.
In addition, each budget and forward estimates has a number of one-off payments which fall due for payment during the supply period. An example of this is the capital works, for which $70m is provided in the 1993-94 Supply Bill compared to $92m in the 1992-93 Supply Act. That reflects the impact of the accelerated capital works program which the Government adopted last year. Many programs have been allocated funding for 13 pays, given that the first payday falls on 1 July 1993. We should bear in mind that this is a 27-pay year. Normally there would be an expectation of 12 pays in supply; this year there are 13.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .