Page 3119 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 15 September 1993
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In fact as recently as mid-August the Treasury told us that the Government had not yet made a decision regarding the form of presentation of this year's budget. We found that rather curious. The budget was presented yesterday. Only a month ago, according to the Treasury, the Government had made no determination about what form the budget papers were going to take. I find that unbelievable. We felt that either the Treasury was not consulting with the Government on what their intentions and wishes were, or they felt constrained about telling the committee what was going on. The Public Accounts Committee has a specific statutory role to carry out and we felt that we were not receiving sufficient information, in terms of our inquiry, as to just what the process was.
In that connection one of the matters that concerned us in the Treasury response to our requests for an input was their statement:
... an attempt will be made to conform with the second stage of uniform reporting agreed at the 1991 Premiers Conference.
What does that mean? Does it mean that they are going to conform? Does it mean that there is an agreement, of which the ACT Government is a part, that we will adopt uniform reporting, or that we have some reservations about uniform reporting? Just what does that comment mean? Does it represent the attitude of the Government, that we do not care very much about the subject, or is it representative of the view of the Treasury? We could not determine that. Since the committee accepts the general thrust of the Auditor-General's report and his recommendations in this matter, we would like to feel that the Government at least has some enthusiasm for taking on this task.
We found it difficult to determine whether another extract from the response constituted a definite statement of intent or whether it was merely a pious hope of something that might happen in the future. I quote from the submission:
Subject to these commitments at a national level, attempts will also be made to include in the 1993-94 Budget Papers an overall statement of the ACT Public Account as proposed by the Auditor-General.
This was only in August. We were not sure whether that meant that they would do so, that they might do so, or that they would not do so. They said, "Attempts will also be made ...". When you are within one month of presentation of the budget it is a bit hard to accept that as a response from a Treasury as to what their intentions are. They did, however, in some respects, indicate that they were prepared to pick up some of the Auditor-General's responses. For example, they did indicate that it was proposed to treat all uses of reserves and provisions, of which the Chief Minister has made much this morning, I understand, as below the line transactions in the Consolidated Fund statement, as was suggested by the Auditor-General in order to achieve some clarity as to where the money was coming from.
The Auditor-General had commented at length on the question of the aggregate financial statements. The committee endorses the comments of the Auditor-General to the effect specifically that the provision of these statements to the Assembly long periods after the end of the year on which they are reporting reduces to a negligible level the value of the information disclosed.
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