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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (2 December) . . Page.. 4391 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

And what is proposed states:

The budget papers shall include material that facilitates a comparison, for each appropriation unit, between the budget for the Territory for the previous financial year and the proposed budget.

They are almost identical words; but there is a difference, and the difference is that the version that is proposed by the Labor Party states:

A proposed budget shall include budget estimates, for each appropriation unit, for each of the next 3 financial years.

That is actually what the amendment is for - to delete forward estimates. It does not, as Mrs Carnell says, have anything to do with backcasting or anything else. There were discussions there about what members in this place would consider appropriate compliance with subsection (2) as proposed by the Chief Minister; but what this amendment does is delete from the Financial Management Act Labor's proposal for three years of forward estimates. Members will recall that the discussion at the round table was that we would not want to prescribe three years of forward estimates because, at some time in the future, a new financial standard might come in which requires four years of forward estimates, and how could we provide four years of forward estimates if the Financial Management Act said three? I think members at the round table agreed that that was not a huge problem to overcome, providing more information than was required in the Financial Management Act.

Mr Speaker, I do not want to talk for too long, given the time; but let me just reiterate the point I made. This amendment is not about the form of comparability, because the words relating to the form of comparability are the same. It is about deleting the reference to forward estimates. I would urge members on the crossbenches not to vote for Mrs Carnell's amendment, which effectively deletes references to forward estimates, because I believe that it is appropriate in the Financial Management Act to set down our requirement for three years of forward estimates. You have to ask the question: Why does the Chief Minister not want a requirement in the Financial Management Act for three years of forward estimates?

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (11.18): Mr Speaker, the reason, as I think we spoke about at the round table, was that there should be allowances for flexibility to reduce or increase it, as required, and that would have to be as part of accounting guidelines and policies. The Estimates Committee and the Assembly have input into this sort of thing. Again, I cannot quite see why you would want to be this descriptive in a situation like this. Let us be fair; the Assembly has a large amount of control in this area, as do estimates committees. Mr Speaker, I do not quite understand why you would not allow the flexibility to go to five years or whatever, if that is what you chose to do.

Amendment negatived.

Clauses agreed to.

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