Page 4180 - Week 13 - Thursday, 25 November 1993
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MR CORNWELL: The section does not prevent any member from placing limits or caveats upon aspects of the budget. A member can, for example, suggest the substitution of one budget proposal for another. Members can, for example, propose rejection of a budget proposal - either reject it outright or reject it for another proposal. Specific funding, in my opinion, does not need to be identified because none was identified in the original proposal. The budget is a single appropriation of $1.353 billion, I think. As long as the member does not seek to increase the amount of public money to be spent and to be charged, I believe that amendments are not only possible but permitted. Madam Speaker, the same could apply in relation to standing orders 200 and 201.
MADAM SPEAKER: I have just ruled on that, Mr Cornwell.
MR CORNWELL: I know that you have ruled on that, Madam Speaker, and I am not disputing your ruling. I am simply arguing the case that we are not seeking to increase the amount or seeking to alter the destination of money to be disposed of or charged from the budget. The amendment I am now moving by way of a new clause adds a rider or a limitation to the Appropriation Bill that simply prevents the Government from appropriating money to cut the number of teachers in ACT schools or colleges. It does not block the budget. It does not prevent public servants from being paid, or the overall business of government from being proceeded with. It simply states that, in the portfolio area of education, in achieving the Government's 2 per cent reduction in funds this Assembly does not wish this financial cut or any part of it to be achieved by a reduction in the number of teachers in ACT schools or colleges.
The amendment also does not attempt to prevent the Government from making other announced cuts in the budget; neither does it presume to direct the Government where else it should make cuts to make up for the loss of teacher cuts in the education portfolio. Certainly, it does not presume to direct the Government that it should make cuts in any other portfolio. There is no increase in the amount of public money of the Territory to be disposed of or charged, nor is there any increase in funds proposed in the education budget or any increase in costs proposed in the education budget by this amendment. In fact, the words of the preamble to the new clause call upon the Government to do quite the reverse, instructing the Executive not to appropriate money for the purposes of reduction.
While the Appropriation Bill can be amended in this way, and the Liberal Party is prepared to do so in this case in the best interests of the ACT community, it is not our intention to be too prescriptive, recognising that the Labor Government, however belatedly, has recognised the need to make budget cuts. Therefore, we are not going to lay down where substitute savings can be found instead of cutting 80 teacher positions in ACT primary schools, high schools and colleges. We give the Government as broad a choice as possible. Nevertheless, in case the Government wishes to plead that it has searched all hollow logs and found them empty, and in deference to Mr Wood's claims over the past few days about how he agonised and burned the midnight oil for months in trying to find alternatives to cutting teachers, let me say that there are three portfolios that have been quarantined from any cut, 2 per cent or not. Perhaps some of these could be examined to provide a proportion of savings proposed by teacher cuts. There also is the matter of $5.1m in rental arrears outstanding in Mr Connolly's Housing Trust. That is another thought.
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