Page 2271 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Madam Speaker, I could go through some of the detailed figures to see where we were underexpended and overexpended. I think that at this stage that would be pointless. I think I have made my point. This Chief Minister and Treasurer's claims to good management are empty claims. She has not demonstrated one ounce of management competence at all - and neither have Mr Berry, Mr Connolly and Mr Wood, while we are on it. They obviously have no idea of what is going on within their budget. We can see now why there is such a reluctance on the part of the Government to put financial statements like the quarterly health statement on the table so that we can see what is going on. There is no control being exercised at all; the outcome is purely fortuitous. To claim that that sort of fortuitous outcome is good management is hypocrisy in the extreme.
Madam Speaker, I indicated that when we have the aggregate statement of financial accounts for last year, which we understand will be available at the time that the estimates are being examined, we can shred out some of these things and find out really what went on there and where the $40m that was not spent should have been spent. Maybe the Chief Minister will not be making such claims at the end of that process as she is at the moment.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.56): Madam Speaker, I find it impossible to resist entering into this debate. The Labor Party is under spirited attack from the Opposition for not spending money fast enough: "Go out and spend ratepayers' dollars, Government" - shock, horror! - "Government, you failed to spend $40m of the ratepayers' money. You should be ashamed of yourself". What an extraordinary attack from the Liberal Party! It is a pity that tonight is the Federal budget night, because it would be great to see your speech reported widely to the ratepayers of Canberra in tomorrow's Canberra Times.
Madam Speaker, the reason I jumped was to make a very important point. Mr Kaine was mistaken when he said that we have underspent the police budget by $1.5m. That is what the raw figures show, but they need to be explained. The raw figures show an ACT sourced expenditure reduced. That is because of the good management and good negotiation skills of this Government. Shortly before the last Federal election, which may have been coincidental, we were able to negotiate with the Commonwealth Government an additional $2m of Commonwealth contribution to the cost of ACT policing. Senator Tate announced that the Commonwealth would pick up $2m worth of additional policing expenditure, consistent with a view that this Government has put, and indeed the Opposition has put, that the Commonwealth should pick up a greater share of the burden of policing the ACT. Against that must be offset the additional expenditure where we made an additional appropriation to the Federal Police to cover the unanticipated cost of the transfer of the Winchester inquiry cost to the ACT and, I think, one of the VIP visits. There was some publicity over that earlier this year. That amounted to a bit under $500,000.
So the reason why it appears that we have underspent on police by $1.5m in fact is that we have successfully negotiated with the Commonwealth to get a $2m pick-up by the Commonwealth of their burden of ACT policing. The actual dollars spent on the ground in ACT policing have not changed, but we have successfully negotiated with the Commonwealth. That, members would recall, was something in the nature of an election promise by the Commonwealth.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .