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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 929 ..
MR STEFANIAK (continuing):
said; I will correct him on that one. But the number of teachers that that lot over there - Mr Berry being a Minister in that Government - were going to take out of education was significant. I think Mr Moore is quite right in the points he makes on that.
The conclusions of this report are worthy of putting on the record. There are three of them. Firstly:
the method used to determine the annual indexation amount, including the base amount, is both reasonable and consistent with the budgeting practices encountered in other public sector jurisdictions;
Secondly:
the budgeted funding levels, afforded to ACT primary and secondary schools during the period 1995/6 through to 1999/2000 have been maintained at real levels. Moreover, providing the budgeted rate of inflation matches the actual rate of inflation in the year 2000/01, then it is our opinion that maintenance of real funding would also continue through the 2000/01 financial year;
Thirdly:
the actual funding levels from government, as recorded in the audited financial statements for Government schooling from 1995/6 through to 1998/99, did not differ materially from budget funding levels.
I hold up an interesting graph. The green line shows the actual increase in CPI from the 1995 level. The pink line shows the actual increase in government expenditure on secondary and primary schooling in the Territory, including the extrapolation for 2000-01. It shows a gap of about $10m for the coming financial year. Doing the sums for six years, it shows that this Government has spent and intends to spend through this budgetary process for 2000-01 some $37m over its actual promise. That is something that has to be noted.
Maybe the P&C council's calculator needs new batteries, otherwise I am at a loss as to why they continue to maintain the argument they have used during this budget process that it all changed in 1998. Maybe, in fairness to them, they still have some problems with accrual accounting. The way the Government has done its expenditure has not changed. They say that there should be double dipping on items such as Commonwealth grants, which are indexed, and superannuation, of which we have to pay a certain amount each year regardless. They are money in, money out items, items on which we pay the full fare. Insurance is another. We might have to pay $2m one year and $3m the next year. Those items used to be in another part of the budget, in a central part of the budget, but, as a result of accrual accounting, they have been devolved to agencies. The P&C council is saying that the CPI should be attached to them and it is or they are items which are totally fully funded anyway. That is something no other government does. That is where the fallacy arises. They do not seem to be able to grasp the effect of accrual accounting.
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