Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4351 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

budget time. We are happy to support this because it will help stop some of the game playing that can take place where agencies go on a spending spree just to make sure they use up their budget in case it is cut. I note that Mr Berry has an amendment to delete this provision and I will not be supporting that.

The Government is also proposing in its amendments a process of payments being made in anticipation of supply. This I do not feel so comfortable with. We have heard the Government's arguments about this being consistent with accrual accounting. Nevertheless, once again, I stress that this is a political arena, not a business, and I think that for an agency to carry over money that has already been appropriated is different from an agency essentially anticipating a future appropriation. The Government explained this with an example of it being a mechanism to facilitate paying accounts before the end of the financial year where the agency might get a discount for doing so. I still believe that this sets a dangerous precedent where the bureaucracy is anticipating a budget that has not yet been voted on by the Assembly. The Energy Research and Development Corporation which was abolished by the Commonwealth Government had apparently already contracted to pay amounts of money before its funding was stopped, and now there are legal battles taking place because the Commonwealth is trying to get out of the contracts. I think this gives some indication of the sorts of problems we could be getting into by allowing payments in anticipation of appropriation.

A second new amendment of the Government's which has proved to be slightly more controversial is the proposal relating to government special purpose payments, or, for those who prefer acronyms, SPPs. At the moment there is no legal mechanism to spend money that is delivered to the Territory from the Commonwealth in the form of a special purpose payment during the year apart from a second appropriation or the Treasurer's Advance. I think all members share a similar concern that, in the event - which is seemingly unlikely, although not perhaps with the current Federal Government - that we receive money for a program we do not believe is in the best interests of ACT residents, we are stuck with it under this proposal. I do not believe that to be the case. The Treasurer still has to table any information in the Assembly by instrument, and the Assembly could act, through a motion, for example, to prevent that money from being spent by an ACT agency.

I will make a few remarks about the Bill that was initially introduced by Mr Whitecross, the Financial Management (Amendment) Bill. The Labor amendments were mainly agreed to at the round table discussion. They are to tighten up definitions of "General Government Sector" and "public trading enterprise", applying ABS definitions. As was agreed at the round table discussion, they are also extending the deadline for presentation of monthly and quarterly reports from 15 to 30 days. I think there was general agreement that it is not satisfactory to have no timeline on reporting, but there was a willingness from members to recognise that 15 days may be too tight a turnaround time. The overall thrust of the ALP's Bill is to bring more accountability into the budget process and financial reporting process, and the Greens are happy to support all the measures in that.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .