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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2129 ..

Mr Hargreaves: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. Would you ask Mr Moore to contain himself, please?

MR SPEAKER: Order, please! Can I have a bit of shush here, please. Mr Quinlan has the floor. The opportunity is there for everybody to participate in the debate and I am sure that everybody will.

MR QUINLAN: Mr Speaker, I believe that this amending of the Bill is part of the continuing misinformation and sleight of hand that have been associated with this project from day one.

Mr Moore: Methinks it is the kettle calling the pot black; it is as simple as that.

MR QUINLAN: I have not had the chance yet. It may happen. It may well happen. I have spoken to the Auditor-General and explained to him what I, at that point, understood may be happening.

Mr Moore: Why did you not speak to your own staff.

MR QUINLAN: We are talking about five minutes ago, mate. I am in here making up a quorum and attending the debate of the year, the budget debate.

We are finding today what the level of new money is. There are some invoices lying around - we do not know how many - and there is $5m worth of working capital. Mr Speaker, I understand from the Auditor-General's advice to me - it was only informal telephonic advice - that if it was working capital it would have to be considered to be repayable, a repayable capital injection. Under the Financial Management Act, section 12(f), a capital injection that is to be repaid needs to be associated with a statement that identifies the capital injection as such an injection and specifies the conditions under which the injection is to be provided, including the requirements relating to the period within which it is to be repaid.

That has not happened here. Initially, we got a set of new numbers and were told, "This fixes the old problem. The Auditor-General" - up to yesterday - "is going to check it". These numbers were not referred to the Auditor-General, but we were given the clear indication that they would be. I am sure that we will find if we go back in Hansard that the Chief Minister has chosen her words well, but we would have been, I think, invited to have misinterpreted them and assume that these amendments to the appropriations have been referred to the Auditor-General. According to his words to me this morning, they were not. As I have said, this is a continuation - - -

Mr Humphries: Move a motion of censure.

MR QUINLAN: Are you recidivists or what? Two days ago we debated due process, and what have we got? (Extension of time granted) I believe, Mr Speaker, that we must reject the amendments because we have not been given the detail and we have not been given the appropriate information. They may well be outside the Financial Management Act - and you would not want to breach it again, would you? - because

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