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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2212 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Many of the recommendations of the committee will be achieved through the implementation of the Government's financial management reforms. These will see a departure from the current focus on inputs to an output-based budgeting model. The output-based model will mean greater accountability and transparency of the budget to the Assembly and the community. In that way, the Assembly will be able to assess the performance of agencies, and ultimately the Government, on how well or to what degree outcomes are achieved. The committee drew to the Government's attention specific issues relating to health, illegal dumping, fleet and public transport. I am sure that all members will see the benefit of the Government's actions in the future.

Turning to the 1995-96 budget, I believe that it provides a sound basis for responsible and accountable financial management over the next three years. As was stated earlier this morning, we will be judged on that by the community in three years' time. We will turn around a deficit of $44m in 1995-96 to a surplus of $21m by the end of the third year, with this surplus increasing from then on. Mr Speaker, I commend the Government's response to the Estimates Committee's report for the 1995-96 budget to this Assembly.

One thing that needs to be said here, before I go on to the response to the next report, is that Ms Follett said this morning that never before had recommendations been made by an estimates committee with regard to changing the actual appropriations within the budget or financial recommendations generally, and that somehow that meant that the Government had to respond to the Estimates Committee report. I think many of those who have been in this Assembly for longer than this term will remember that the last two estimates committee reports suggested that the Health Promotion Fund should have at least 5 per cent of the revenue gained from the tobacco franchise fee. That was knocked back by the Government on two occasions. Never once did we consider bringing forward a motion, even though we would have had the numbers on the floor to do so, to force the Government's hand to allocate that revenue in that way, because we believed strongly that the Government must be judged on the basis of its budget.

There was another circumstance in 1991-92 where the Estimates Committee brought forward a recommendation that funding for the three non-government schools be reinstated pending appropriate consultation and negotiation on future support. What did the Government do? It knocked back that recommendation. Again, the Government had every right to do that, as governments have regularly knocked back recommendations of estimates committees.

I think we are very lucky in this Assembly that estimates committees have had almost all of their recommendations picked up - all but six this year, all but seven last year, and all but four the year before. I think that, in total, estimates committee reports are being picked up by the government of the day, but never have they been picked up in full and, to my knowledge, never has a recommendation of the estimates committee that requires a change in the figures within the budget been picked up by the government of the day. We have to understand what the precedents are that were set not by us but by the previous Government in this area. We have seen on quite a number of occasions recommendations that came from the estimates committee that would have changed allocations knocked back by the government of the day, and the government of the day was Rosemary Follett's Government.

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