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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2584 ..

No amendment of such proposal shall be moved which would increase, or extend the objects and purposes or alter the destination of, the appropriation so recommended unless a further message is received.

23. This standing order is more restrictive than Assembly standing order 201 (see earlier comments by Reid).

24. May at page 697 states:

The principle underlying the classification of estimates is that each class of the estimates is designed to correspond to a separate programme as classified in the Government's Public Expenditure White Paper; as far as possible connected services appear together, and the estimates for the services controlled by a particular department are mainly grouped in the same class.

Each class is divided into a number of votes, on each of which it is possible for the House to take a separate decision .... Votes are units of appropriation .... They are drawn up on a departmental basis, and each vote specifies which department is accountable for it, but there may be several votes controlled by a single department.

Each vote is in turn divided into 4 parts.

25. May earlier (at page 690) states:

Three important precepts of financial practice are implied in the appropriation of expenditure. (1) A sum appropriated to a particular service cannot be spent on another service. (2) The sum appropriated is a maximum sum. (3) It is available only in respect of charges which have arisen during the year in respect of which it has been appropriated by the relevant Act. As a consequence, any sum found to be saved on a vote at the end of a financial year must be surrendered to the Exchequer.

26. In the New Zealand House of Representatives, the term "vote" in relation to an item of expenditure is widely used. Their standing order 224, similar to House of Representatives standing order 226 and Assembly standing order 180 contains the proviso:

Provided that in considering an Appropriation Bill containing the main Estimates the schedules expressing the services and purposes shall be considered before the clauses, and, unless the committee otherwise orders, the Votes in the schedules shall be taken in such order as may be determined by the Leader of the House.

27. Their Public Finance Act defines "vote" as meaning:

... a grouping of one or more appropriations for
(a) Classes of outputs or programs; or
(b) Capital contributions; or

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