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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2236 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

would know that the whole role of the Grants Commission is to get reasonable comparisons. That is what they do. Their job is to try to work out exactly how to get those comparisons and to do it. I suspect that the Chief Minister was getting a bit carried away with the debate. The same thing is happening in terms of the way she comes up with the fancy figures.

I would like to take us to the issue of hypocrisy, Mr Speaker, and I quote from the report of the 1993 Select Committee on Estimates, at page 54:

The Committee notes that the 2% expenditure reductions imposed on the Legislative Assembly has had unintended consequences, particularly in view of the move to the new building in 1994. The original budget for the Assembly was developed prior to self-government actually commencing and, despite a number of changes in activity over the last four and a half years, the budget base has not been reviewed.

During the hearing it was acknowledged that a review of the budget base needs to be conducted.

The Committee recommends that:

. the Treasurer review the base funding of the Legislative Assembly to ensure that it is sufficient to maintain an appropriate level of service to Members, particularly in the light of the move to the new building.

Mr Speaker, the only Minister who ought not be squirming at the moment is Mr Stefaniak, and the one who should be squirming most of all is Mr Humphries. The reason Mr Humphries should be squirming most of all is that he cannot remember it and he was deputy chair of the Estimates Committee at the time. It was chaired by Ms Szuty and the deputy chair was Mr Humphries. What a shame he is not here. I am sure he must be squirming up there in his office somewhere as he hears this. What is the very next name under the deputy chair in the membership of the committee? You guessed it. It is Mrs Carnell. A couple further down is the name of Mr De Domenico. It was your recommendation then that the base was wrong, that we had not had a review, and that we had to get the money right.

Finally, we got a small amount of extra money. It was a small amount but it was adequate and the Assembly managed because it fell into two categories. There was extra money in terms of the new building, which was a one-off payment which Rosemary Follett, as Chief Minister, found for us, and then there was the extra recurrent funding for us to change the base. I can see Mr Humphries walking in and squirming, as he should, having been deputy chair of the Select Committee on Estimates which considered the Appropriation Bill 1993-94 that he cannot remember.

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