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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 1973 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

We also asked for advice on the expected annual expense reduction and amortisation benefit which is occurring between annual reports, the draft budget and the proposed budget so that we can get a better understanding of exactly how the government has reached that figure. Finally, we asked for advice on the prospective superannuation schedule, including the expected emerging costs, total liability, asset level and annual expenses on a year-by-year basis according to the schedules that have been provided by the actuary in his report.

Those matters give an example of the sort of scrutiny the committee has attempted to put the budget under and the sort of recommendation that we believe is required to get the information the Assembly needs to have a better understanding of this very important issue.

Moving to some other areas of the budget, the committee was concerned to ensure that the Assembly and the community overall had a better picture of the operating costs, expenditures and returns of the V8 supercar race. This, of course, was in the budget in the outyears as well as being in the budget for the next financial year. The committee recommends that an operating statement and a cash flow statement for the 1999-2000 GMC V8 supercar race be provided to the Assembly at the earliest opportunity-we actually recommend the September 2000 sittings-and that the government provide the Assembly with details of the total financial return deriving from this year's event.

Mr Speaker, outside the Chief Minister's portfolio, there were a number of recommendations in relation to health that the committee was particularly concerned about. The first relates to the proposed discretionary funding-some more unkindly would call it a slush fund-for the minister for health. Mr Speaker, the committee appreciated the efforts to which the minister went in attempting to detail to the committee exactly where this discretionary funding would take place.

It highlights the importance of having an estimates process that the minister was required to come forward and explain exactly how that discretionary funding was going to be used. Without an estimates process, which is what the government has intimated at from time to time, that would not have been available, nor would the opportunity have been available to members to question the minister on that issue. Again I have highlighted an example of where the Estimates Committee does its job, and does it effectively.

Following the advice given and information tabled by the minister for health at the Estimates Committee hearing, the committee has recommended that the minister should formally table those documents in the Assembly and detail in the Assembly itself that he will be using that discretionary funding in the way he outlined to the committee. We believe that is a very important accountability measure.

Mr Speaker, the committee was concerned that there remains a large area of disagreement in relation to what is an adequate level of funding for the Canberra Hospital. As a result, the committee recommends that the government conduct a formal and transparent review to determine whether the current benchmarks against which the Canberra Hospital's financial performance are measured are suitable, and inform the Assembly on the result of that review. We believe that this is an important step in getting a far better understanding of the appropriate levels of financing for the hospital.

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