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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 10 Hansard (26 November) . . Page.. 3166 ..

CONFIDENTIAL

. Employee expenses of MLAs, and their immediate support staff are met from the Territorial account of the Legislative Assembly. Out of this Territorial account, MLAs are each allotted a lump sum allocation to employ their immediate support staff.

. Since 1994-95, it has been practice to provide an additional amount of $588,000 for the Territorial account in any election year (i.e. every third year), primarily for the purpose of funding the superannuation payouts due to those MLAs who do not seek, or obtain, re-election. The figure of $588,000 was derived in 1994-95, following a study conducted by a consulting actuary.

. Fiscal year 1997-98 was an election year. In the 1997-98 Budget, the Territorial account was appropriated $3.076 million. This amount included the $0.588 million provision.

. In 1997-98, the result was that there were more than sufficient funds in the Territorial account to meet the expected call in superannuation payouts arising from the February 1998 election results. The total final superannuation payout to the five Members who did not return to the Assembly after the February 1998 election was $333,639.12.

. For this reason, funding for the increase in staff salary allocations for the cross-bench MLAs and the Speaker was able to be accommodated within the existing 1997-98 appropriation for the Territorial account.

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