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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (9 August) . . Page.. 2685 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, those comments show a great misunderstanding of what is in this consolidated financial management report. First of all, as I have said, this report deals with last financial year, not this financial year. Secondly, the shadow Treasurer spoke of a projected surplus of $45.6 million, let us say $46 million. I could not find that figure in the paper until I turned to the page after the one where I was looking at the government surplus and found, instead, the whole-of-government figure, and there was an amount of $46 million.

Mr Speaker, the whole-of-government figure is not the figure on which a government surplus is calculated. That figure includes the public trading enterprises sector, government businesses. The surplus about which we talk versus the operating loss about which we also talk, quite a lot lately, is a figure derived from the result from the general government sector. That is at the top half of page 2 of that report, Mr Speaker. That figure shows an estimated outcome for 2000-01 of $12 million, much closer to the figure that was actually projected at the budget of last year than the $46 million Mr Quinlan quoted a little while ago.

I repeat for Mr Quinlan's benefit as he has just returned to the chamber that the papers do not show a projected surplus-I am quoting from his question yesterday-for the current financial year of $45.6 million. You have read the wrong table, Mr Quinlan. You should be looking at the page before the page you were reading, page 2, which shows the result for the general government sector. The result there is, as you can see in the last column, $12 million, not $46 million. Obviously, there is a difference between the PTE sector and the general government sector, which I will not explain; I am sure that Mr Quinlan understands at least that much.

Mr Quinlan asked me whether the projected surplus has taken into account the $30 million appropriation for HIH and the $43 million, as he put it, mini-budget. Yes, of course it does. If Mr Quinlan looks at page 2, he will see that that is referred to, particularly as far as HIH is concerned. I quote from the report:

The estimated outcome has been adjusted to reflect the impact on the recent passing of the Appropriation (HIH) Bill 2000-2001.

So the question of whether it included that is answered for him in the document there.

Mr Quinlan: Yes.

MR HUMPHRIES: You asked me whether it was, and it is clearly there on the page. Mr Speaker, it would be quite extraordinary in any case if the document had been tabled without that adjustment being made. To repeat for Mr Quinlan's benefit, the surplus of which we talk is the surplus for the general government sector, not for the whole-of-government sector, which takes into account PTEs.

Mr Robbie Waterhouse

MR HUMPHRIES: Yesterday, I took on notice a question from Mr Rugendyke concerning Mr Robbie Waterhouse and his potential or possible application for a bookmaking licence in the ACT. I confirm my advice yesterday that Mr Waterhouse has not made application to the Gambling and Racing Commission for such a licence,

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