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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (17 June) . . Page.. 1627 ..

MS REILLY (continuing):

there will be a rollover of unspent moneys into next year's budget. This is really important for this area and for a number of other areas. If there are unspent moneys and the programs are continuing, does this mean that there will be additional moneys available in the coming year, in 1997-98?

In the area of maintenance for housing, I would highlight exactly the same matter. Three-quarters of the way through the financial year, there was an underexpenditure of nearly 50 per cent. If this target is not met by 30 June this year, will this money that was allocated to maintenance, which must have been considered essential for maintenance in ACT Housing, be rolled forward into 1997-98 so that Housing tenants are not further disadvantaged by the slowness with which the maintenance budget has been spent this year? It cannot be claimed that there was no outstanding need for maintenance spending in this area. The Minister said that there is probably about $1 billion worth of outstanding maintenance. So, there is obviously a need for considerable expenditure in this area.

Ms McRae has already raised the issue of scrutiny of the public works part of ACT Housing. It was extremely unfortunate that no-one seemed to know what had been scrutinised in relation to housing and that, in the presentation, there was a lack of information in this area. I agree that the information provided for other capital works was excellent this year, and it was extremely helpful for the people who looked at it in the Planning and Environment Committee. Also, from reports that I have had back from the community organisations that were involved in this process, it was extremely helpful for them to understand what was being considered for their community. This is very gratifying, and it is an example of more involvement by people in the estimates process and in the development of the budget process. I am quite sure that this recommendation will be taken up next year. What we are talking about is $34m - a large part of the budget. This is a considerable figure. As well as that, apart from the construction and purchase of houses that will flow from this $34m, this also creates jobs. Expenditure in this area is very important for the building and construction industry in the ACT. It would be helpful for all concerned to understand where this money is going to be spent in the coming year.

I would like to highlight, too, the fact that, by bringing down the budget a week before the Commonwealth budget, we were uncertain about what Commonwealth moneys we may get this year. In the housing budget there was actually a loss of $780,000. We need an indication of where this money will be taken out of the budget, which part of the housing budget will be affected by this loss from the Commonwealth Grants Commission process.

We need to continue some of the methods we have used in the estimates process to ensure the greatest scrutiny of the budget process, so that there is more transparency of information and more transparency within the community, and to ensure that people are fully informed about what is going on for their community from government revenue. It is going to be important for the Estimates Committee to be able to draw together the two parts of this process in September-October, when we have the annual reports. I am hoping that the annual reports will provide sufficient information for us to examine the results of the 1996-97 budget.

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