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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (30 June) . . Page.. 1789 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

unintentional technical breach that was fixed by a retrospective legislative instrument, as was the practice in the past - not just in this Assembly, although we have done it here, but in New South Wales and every other State in this country.

Mr Speaker, I now turn to another issue that Mr Stanhope raised, that is, the issue of appropriation. It has been suggested that all moneys spent by the ACT Government must be included in an Appropriation Act. Several people, including Mr Stanhope, have been asserting that an Appropriation Act is required for every dollar the Government spends. Mr Speaker, that is simply not true; but, unfortunately, it is the sort of spin that characterises the way that the members of the Opposition have misrepresented the facts here. The fact is that, whilst all money spent by a government must be authorised, it is not necessarily subject to an Appropriation Act.

Let me make the difference quite clear, Mr Speaker. There is no doubt about authorisation. It is a fundamental principle of our system of representative democracy that the levying of taxes and the expenditure of public money must be authorised by law. This principle is reflected in section 58 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act and in section 6 of the Financial Management Act. Section 6, also quoted by Mr Stanhope with a slightly different spin, says:

However, it is most important to understand that the word "appropriation" in this context means authorised by law. It does not necessarily mean an Appropriation Act. This is a very important distinction, Mr Speaker. The key point here is this: The expenditure of public money must be authorised, but it does not have to be authorised by an Appropriation Act. In other words, the expenditure of public money can be authorised in a number of ways, apart from an Appropriation Act.

Under the Financial Management Act, there are two different sources of appropriation under the law - one that this Assembly or a past Assembly actually passed. First, there are the annual appropriations, which provide for most of the expenditure of the Territory. The structure of the Appropriation Bill is defined under section 8 of the Financial Management Act. The second type of appropriations is called standing appropriations. The Financial Management Act authorises money to be paid direct as standing appropriations without a separate Appropriation Act. In these circumstances the Financial Management Act is, itself, the appropriation; that is the authorisation. I will just quote that again, Mr Speaker. In these cases, the Financial Management Act is, itself, the appropriation.

Let me give you some examples. In the event that there is a delay in the budget being passed, the Financial Management Act, section 7, provides for money to be spent to meet the ongoing requirements of government. Salaries have to be paid, accounts have to be honoured, so the Financial Management Act allows those payments to be made without being expressly passed by this Assembly. In fact, Mr Speaker, only yesterday I signed an instrument issued under section 7 of the Financial Management Act, which is the authority to spend on lapse of an appropriation, and section 37, which is the authority to issue public money, for - wait for this, Mr Speaker - $722,990,000. This instrument relates to the authority to issue an appropriation and expend public money from

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