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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (18 June) . . Page.. 1710 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (10.33): Mr Speaker, I present the Financial Management (Amendment) Bill 1997.

Title read by Clerk.

MR WHITECROSS: I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

The purpose of this Bill is to strengthen the provisions of the Financial Management Act which was passed last year. Labor supported the financial management reforms. Indeed, the moves to accrual accounting were started under the previous Labor Government, and Labor believes that the financial management reforms set out in the Financial Management Bill were an important step forward for public finances in this Territory. Mrs Carnell has repeatedly suggested that the new financial arrangements would signal a brave new world in Territory finances, one in which there would be the most open and public disclosure of all the circumstances of the Territory.

I am afraid that the experience of the last 12 months has not always lived up to Mrs Carnell's rhetoric. Like most things, it was more to do with media opportunities than to do with actual personal commitment to the reforms. The need for the amendments which I am moving today has arisen because of the Chief Minister and Treasurer's attempts to thwart, undermine and defy scrutiny of her handling of Territory finances over the last 12 months. I have been repeatedly frustrated personally, and I am sure other members have as well, by Mrs Carnell's blatant and unfettered secrecy. Her rhetoric about open and transparent government is just that - rhetoric. In order for me to do my job properly as shadow Treasurer, and for the Assembly as a whole to do properly its job of scrutinising the Government's finances, these amendments are necessary.

Mr Speaker, let us look at some of the performance of the Government over the last 12 months. One of the key elements of the financial reforms is monthly financial statements, which are required under section 26 of the Act. The intention of the Financial Management Act is clear; monthly financial statements should be that - monthly. While debating this legislation last year, Mrs Carnell was very pleased with herself because, for the first time, monthly financial reporting would be enshrined in legislation. The only problem is that we have not had monthly financial reporting since that time. The first report that the Liberal leader provided to the Assembly was actually provided in November, five months after the start of the financial year. It was a quarterly report, not a monthly report at all. What is worse - and this goes really to the spirit in which she approaches this whole Act - she dumped it on the Assembly in the middle of the night, in the middle of the actual budget debate. We were required to pass the budget on the same night as we actually received the first lot of financial management reporting on the performance of the Government in that financial year. Minimum scrutiny, rather than maximum scrutiny, of what she was doing was obviously her aim.

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