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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (3 May) . . Page.. 1430 ..
MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):
The second item that the bill deals with is about unforeseen budget pressures and the third is about a category of matters which are considered necessary and worth while to pursue at this time. Obviously, we could have dealt with them using other mechanisms, but I might say at this point that the Assembly has changed its view on several occasions about the approach that we should take to such matters. When we first came to office we said that, for example, when health budgets were under pressure the government should come back and appropriate additional moneys for them. That is what we did in 1995 or 1996. I might say that at the time we got very considerable criticism from the opposition and from Mr Moore, I think, for not using alternative mechanisms to deal with budget pressures. There are, indeed, provisions in the Financial Management Act to deal with such situations. We were criticised for not using those. We were told that we should have gone back and used those.
I might note that when other issues arose subsequently where alternatives to appropriations were used, such as in respect of the Bruce Stadium, we took the Assembly's advice and went to a different course of action. We also got into considerable trouble for that course of action. We are now being told that going back to an appropriation-based approach is also the wrong way to go. Methinks, Mr Speaker, that whatever we do will be unsatisfactory to some in this place and I will not, therefore, attempt to satisfy them. The second appropriation, however, does amount to a courtesy to the Assembly to advise it of the plans that the government has for spending the territory's money and, as such, we will approach it on that basis.
I want to make a few comments about a couple of remarks made in the course of the debate. I have to say that the overwhelming impression I had from this debate is of there being a very piecemeal approach to the issues that were being raised. A number of things were put forward with a scatter gun and were all over the shop; indeed, some were not even relating to the second appropriation. Ms Tucker complained that there was nothing for the Canberra Hospital nurses. The Canberra Hospital nurses have not agreed to anything and they cannot expect to obtain anything. I am reminded of the line from King Lear, "Nothing will come of nothing; speak again."
Mr Berry gave us the intriguing concept that the government had somehow planned to do in the injecting room, so put forward the Appropriation Bill last year with the plan of having it knocked off. That was a real doozey, although it did remind me of what Mr Berry said at the time of the VITAB issue, which was that it had been the Liberal Party which had caused the territory's deal with VITAB to collapse by going off and persuading the Victorian government somehow to push the ACT out of the betting pool; therefore, we caused the whole VITAB affair in the first place. Mr Berry is at least being consistent.
Mr Berry: I think that is spot on, actually. I think I got to the bottom of it.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the conspiracy theories are alive and well, I am pleased to say.
The third point I want to make is about the speech by Mr Hargreaves, who suggested that consultation on line marking on roads would not begin until after this Appropriation Bill was passed and there would not be time, therefore, to do the work before the end of the
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