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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4373 ..

Mr Moore: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You said that the last time this was before us nobody was listening.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down, Mr Moore.

Mr Moore: Mr Whitecross then stood up and said, "We were listening". That leaves us as just nobody.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down, Mr Moore. Continue, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: The amendment legislates for the expenditure of new, previously unforeseen specific purpose grants. Currently, what happens is that money from the SPP comes into the general government fund, but we have to draw it from the Treasurer's Advance because there is no specific appropriation for the purpose. An SPP cannot come in and go out to the purpose for which it was deemed without going through the Treasurer's Advance.

The problem with that - and Mr Berry would have to agree - is that, if by some wonderful chance at some stage the Commonwealth gave us an unforeseen $5m SPP for a particular purpose, we could actually use up almost half of our Treasurer's Advance and not be able to top the Treasurer's Advance up because there is no capacity to do that. This is just a sensible amendment which allows unforeseen SPPs to be spent. The money comes in from the Commonwealth to be spent for the purpose for which it was given.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (10.07): This is a classic example of a misunderstanding of a parliamentary democracy and the need for parliament to properly scrutinise the affairs of government and indeed to make sure that its public servants conform with the wishes of elected members who represent their constituents. This is a classic example of a misunderstanding of your role. Your lack of understanding of your role, Chief Minister, was also demonstrated in the earlier debate about anticipation of appropriation or supply.

In relation to Commonwealth grants, Mrs Carnell said that an unanticipated Commonwealth grant might be paid to the Territory, and in the scheme of things which Mrs Carnell thinks is the right way to go the Government or the Executive, by itself, could direct the funds to the area which was designated for the specific purpose payment.

Mrs Carnell: And there may be authorisation before the Legislative Assembly within three days of it being given.

MR BERRY: What are you going to do after it has been allocated?

Mrs Carnell: We can do that now by the TA.

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