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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 2084 ..

MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

a couple of things. Was it convenient or an accident? Was it convenience or incompetence, Mr Speaker? Blessed if I know. They now have to find out where they are going to get the money to bail out the insurance on HIH. Oops, Mr Speaker.

What about when we build this new prison? If you have a look at the Rengain report, Mr Speaker, you will see that it outlines three time lines for payment of the loan. In the first year, because it is only a partial year, they say we ought to come up with $6 million, in the second year $30 million, and in the third $70 million. I have rounded those figures. I do not know what the interest payment is on $6 million, but that is not in this budget. That has to come off our surplus. In the out years, Mr Speaker, we have to borrow $30 million in the second year. That is what the Chief Minister said, and that is what the minister for corrective services said, in public. We are going to borrow the money and we are going to have to pay it back. In the third year, when we add on the $70 million, all together we are up around the $100 million mark.

According to my calculations, Mr Speaker, and this has been verified by other people who can count better than I can, to borrow something of that size is going to cost us about $9 million a year. Now, how much was the surplus? It was $12 million. Oops, there goes three-quarters of it, Mr Speaker.

About three years ago in this very same debate I remember the shadow Treasurer standing up here and saying that this government had sold all the silverware and was working on the tupperware. I suggest that the windfall that we have got in fact means that this government has inherited some more silverware, and guess what it has done. It has flogged it off. We had better keep a good eye on our tupperware, Mr Speaker.

Now, in terms of the actual process itself, I have a couple of problems with that, as I have mentioned briefly before. The so-called trawling that we have been accused of has revealed either an ignorance of or a contempt of the process in terms of tendering. For example, Mr Speaker, there is an allocation in this budget of $450,000 over two years to the Police Citizens Youth Club. Now, do not get me wrong, Mr Speaker. I do not wish to have anybody misconstrue this as a denigration of the Police Citizens Youth Club. They do an excellent job. They do a fabulous job, in fact.

The standing committee of which I am deputy chair recommended that they receive from the budget two buses. The government, in their wisdom, found the money for the first bus out of Treasurer's Advance, and good on them, I say. Excellent work. The second one was part of that $450,000 that I mentioned. But it actually came as part of a program called "Youth at Risk". They say it was modelled on the Tasmanian model, but nowhere in the Tasmanian model can I find reference to a bus. So perhaps we are getting the truth somewhat coloured, Mr Speaker.

Guess what they did. They said, "Who can do this job? The Police Citizens Youth Club. That's good. We just give it to them." In the first year we are talking about $225,000. Now, correct me if I am wrong, Mr Speaker, but isn't that over $50,000? I would have thought a tender process might have been appropriate for a commitment to spend government money, taxpayers' money, of any amount over $50,000. But, oh no, not in this instance. They said, "We will call it a pilot." I seek a short extension of time, Mr Speaker.

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