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Again I come back to the real point here, and that is that all we have done is extrapolate for a five-month period what the previous Government had in their budget. We are simply not in a position, as we simply have not finished the budget Cabinet process and so on, to determine at this stage what the expenditure is going to be at program and subprogram level, which I would have thought everyone would have understood, simply because we are coming down with a late budget. My understanding, too, is that no government has ever reported expenditure against supply. When you look at what you spend you report it against the budget, not against supply, as I understand it. In fact, I know that I am right. I am sure that the Estimates Committee will make sure that accountability is at the same level as in previous years. They are going to be impressed because there will be a substantially higher level of accountability in this next budget. There will be reporting and accountability at both program and subprogram level, and the level of detail will be substantially greater than in the past, which we believe is an appropriate way to go.

Again, coming back to what we have in front of us here, this simply is an extrapolation of the old budget, obviously in loose terms. It has to be in loose terms because our Government’s priorities are different from those of the previous Government. We simply have to have enough money to pay the staff to do those sorts of things, to get us through until we can bring down a budget on 19 September.

Mr Connolly: You must have that at program level.

MRS CARNELL: If we could break it down to program and subprogram level at this stage we could bring down a budget, could we not, Mr Connolly?

Mr Connolly: No, because that involves your new policy decisions. You have a holding pattern until September.

MRS CARNELL: We do not have an old budget to work on. It was not our budget; it was yours. Your budget is not the budget that we are working on. It is simply - - -

Ms Follett: But supply is.

MRS CARNELL: That is why we have supply to get us through until the next budget comes down. I want to talk now about the amendments that came down today. I am disappointed that we did have to give the Assembly such a short time on these, but there is a problem in that this week is the last sitting week before the end of the financial year. There simply was not a lot of time. As everybody will see, there is no extra money appropriated here. The bottom line is the same. All that has happened internally is that money has been moved around on the basis of the changed Administrative Arrangements. That is what has happened. No extra money has been appropriated. The bottom line is the same.

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