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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 1963 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

received more amendments today, so I shall speak to this bill on the assumption that there are no more amendments coming for it at this stage.

The Financial Management Amendment Bill 2000 (No 2) intends to extend and clarify the definition of net appropriation. As we are aware, within the Financial Management Act there is an allowance for appropriation bills to reflect the net amount that the government needs to appropriate to an agency for its operations. It also allows that agency to spend more than that money if it has revenue sources. With the introduction of the GST there are further differentials, including input tax credits, and therefore there are changes necessary to the Financial Management Act.

They are, I think, reasonable, although, when we take into account the way that it is going to apply, I think it is going to end up something of an auditor's nightmare, trying to find the way through and check whether agencies have spent the correct amount of money against their original budget. The net appropriations have been extended on the operating basis, on a capital basis, and on the basis of Commonwealth funding where Commonwealth grants may turn out to be a little different from what was anticipated in the first place.

This bill also provides for separation of guidelines and regulations. Guidelines can be set by the Treasurer, but regulations remain disallowable and can be set by the executive, and we accept that that is a reasonable process. Although recording at every stage that the opposition does not support the GST, we will, in the spirit of cooperation which pervades this place, be supporting the implementation bills, including this one.

MR KAINE (10.42): Mr Speaker, I indicate that I support this bill. In some respects it is a machinery bill, but there is one respect in which it is not, and that is the amendment which gives the minister power to make financial management guidelines under the act and to make those amendments disallowable instruments. I think this is an important amendment to the act. We have had some difficulty in the past where an estimate was made under this act which turned out not to be disallowable. I think that was a matter of some difficulty under this act. The minister is now moving to correct that anomaly. I am pleased to note that the minister has done that. I think it will improve the way in which this act is administered and it will provide the ability for this Assembly to review any instruments made by the minister and disallow them if we believe that that is in the public interest.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (10.43), in reply: Mr Speaker, I want to thank members for their support for the bill. As Mr Quinlan has noted, a number of bills will be before us today to deal with aspects of both the ACT budget and the new tax system which is starting on Saturday. As members would be aware, a large number of implications for the ACT tax system and for our system of imposing taxes and charges and so on arise from the implementation of the goods and services tax, and it is important for us to prepare for that adequately.

I believe that the capacity we have to be able to properly cater for these things is a matter, to some degree, of trial and error. This is, as members inside this place have noted, the biggest change in taxation arrangements in Australia for at least 100 years, and the need to ensure that we have the capacity to swiftly deal with anomalies or issues that

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