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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1161 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

Put simply, we are not prepared to adopt the practice that has been used in previous years of making artificial cash management arrangements to conceal what is a significant overrun in the health and community care budget.

From there on we all knew where the Chief Minister was coming from and what her clear political positioning was. It was a choice, an open choice, that was made quite clearly by the Chief Minister with a particular intent, with a particular colouring, and with a particular interpretation of previous events. She wanted to be different from other governments and chose to define perfectly appropriate procedures that had been used by many governments for the transfer of funds as somehow inherently bad, and has since commented on events that were done in the dead of night and so on.

The Chief Minister was also clearly very displeased that the health budget had indeed overrun, and rightly so, and stated in her opening statement to the Estimates Committee that the process of introducing a second appropriation Bill would give the Department of Health and Community Care a message. Again, there was a clearly stated, openly stated, intent to involve the Assembly in debate, through its committee and in the chamber, on the problems besetting the Health and Community Care Department. That, again, is an interpretation that the Chief Minister chooses to put on her responsibilities, which she may; but I will explain why there can be differences of opinion about that and why there should be differences of opinion about that.

The immediate question that emerged was: Why an appropriation Bill? If the Government had a problem with using the Audit Act provisions for the transfer of money, there was nothing to stop Mrs Carnell using the transfer Act and then announcing it both publicly to the general public, by way of press release, and to the Assembly at the very moment that it happened. It would have been done openly and would have been open to public scrutiny. That course was clearly open and has always been open to any Treasurer. A motion could have been put that day, and the motion debated. That was an option that was there. We are talking about options that were chosen, interpretations of events that were made and clearly explained, but each with its own colouring for a particular intent. The transfers could have been scrutinised again by the Estimates Committee in October, as has been done in every other Assembly. Despite all claims that these events were secretive, they have never escaped public scrutiny - as both Mr Kaine and Ms Follett remember, to their pain. No Treasurer, no Minister, no government likes to be caught out in a process of mismanaging their budget.

What is ironic, therefore - and it is very ironic - is that these transfers under the Audit Act will still have to be made. Despite the fact that there is an appropriation Bill in front of us and despite the fact that the Assembly is being asked to authorise the expenditure of a further $14.2m on health, the transfers will be undertaken. I sincerely hope that, after all the hot air about the use of the Audit Act, this time it will, in fact, be announced in the Assembly on the day that it happens and not be left purely and simply to be scrutinised in October, which, of course, it again will be.

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