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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 234 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I want to comment for a moment on Ms Tucker's amendment to this motion. There is a very important point to make about the amendment she is moving. The government has put forward a proposal for consultation about its budget. It has put on the table, and is still putting on the table, a number of propositions it wants to take forward in the coming budget, inviting public consultation on them. It has not put out as much this year as it put out last year, because Assembly committees claimed that they were overwhelmed by the amount of information; that there was too much; that there were not the resources to do the work and so on.

Mr Quinlan: How considerate!

MR HUMPHRIES: You said that the work was overwhelming and that you did not have the resources.

Mr Quinlan: Out of consideration for us!

MR HUMPHRIES: The government did not put out less information out of consideration for Mr Quinlan's committee. It did it because it wanted to focus on major issues-

Mr Quinlan: You can sling it sometimes.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I ask for some order. The government has put out this proposal seeking public comment on initiatives. It has put out less than last year in order to allow committees and the Assembly to focus on the nub of the budget, the initiatives of the budget for the most part. We have put forward a motion today in the Assembly because we were told that the standing orders of the Assembly did not permit the process that we had initiated before today to invite the committees, on a voluntary basis, to self-refer the parts of the budget we were giving them to look at. That is why there is a motion before the Assembly today.

Ms Tucker's amendment would make the motion unacceptable to the government. I will explain why in a moment. If the motion is amended as Ms Tucker suggests, and the Assembly then passes the motion as amended, imposing on the government a process for bringing forward its budget with which it does not agree, a very significant threshold will have been crossed. That threshold will be one that says that the government's budget will be consulted about in the way the Assembly dictates rather than the way the government offers.

Mr Berry: Offers?

MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, offers. That is a very significant threshold. Many in this place, including those opposite, the Labor Party, have argued that it is the government's prerogative how it brings forward and deals with its budget. We have moved a motion to overcome a problem with standing orders and to have our budget consulted on as we have asked for it to be consulted on. If Ms Tucker's amendment gets up, it becomes a different motion and we will have established the precedent that the government can have the Assembly tell it how to bring forward its budget.

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