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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (21 May) . . Page.. 1499 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Her explanation, her response to the Estimates Committee, shows how confused she is about the role of the Assembly, the role of government and the role of appropriation Bills. The fact is that she has the power to move this money. If we are to believe her explanation of the state of her budget, she has the power. We have the right to scrutinise it. Whether or not she has an Appropriation Bill, we have the right to scrutinise what she is doing. We will take up that right any time we want, whether or not she introduces an appropriation Bill.

Mrs Carnell: Not if you do not know about it.

MR WHITECROSS: Mrs Carnell, this was my point: The issue is one of principle, not of process. The principle is that you should tell us what is going on with our budget, not that you need an appropriation Bill to do that. The point is that Mrs Carnell admits that she would be only too happy to use section 49 if she decided to change her priorities but not if she has just stuffed up the health budget.

It is an interesting claim she makes that it would have been appropriate to use section 49 to move money around if she changed her priorities, because it is very apparent from the Estimates Committee report, it is very apparent from the evidence that was given to the Estimates Committee, that the Health Department made a deliberate decision - no doubt with Mrs Carnell's full knowledge - to increase the throughput of patients in order to drive down the waiting list. They bought a reduction in the waiting list by blowing out the health budget. There can be no doubt about that, and that is a change in priorities from what we were told in the budget. They spent extra money to achieve a goal that they had set; they could not achieve it in the budget that they had originally been given. I do not quarrel with reducing waiting lists; I never have. But the reality is that Mrs Carnell has chosen her priorities; she has made deliberate decisions; she has blown out her health budget; and she has been found wanting in the construction of her health budget by the Estimates Committee. She did not effectively respond to that in anything she said last week. More importantly, she has not taken seriously her accountability to the Assembly. She tells us exactly as little as she thinks she can get away with telling us. When we get to the Appropriation Bill, I will have more to say about that.

MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, did you want to make a statement under standing order 47?

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer): Yes, Mr Speaker, under standing order 47. I never, at any stage - to quote Mr Whitecross's exact words - cancelled any capital works program. It is certainly true that there was underspending in a number of capital works areas; but to indicate for one moment that I or, for that matter, any other member of the Executive cancelled any capital works project at all is simply untrue.

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