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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 1 Hansard (13 December) . . Page.. 274 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

far-I hope to be surprised by some of the newer members-that that side of the house appears to be totally bereft of basic financial understanding.

If, as Mr Smyth claims, we are just looking for a deficit and are, in fact, looking for something that does not exist, tell me that we have not, as I stand here, lost substantially in terms of the value of our investments. Tell me that there has not been losses by TransACT in its formative years that will not follow through Actew and to the dividends of the ACT. Tell me that CTEC has not made losses on some of the events that it has run to date. These are facts. These are on the board as we speak. If we are looking for a deficit, Mr Smyth, we have not had to look very far.

I do thank you for the rapid passage of this bill. To do otherwise would not be common sense. We do need to have most of these commitments on foot fairly promptly.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Financial Management Amendment Bill 2001 (No 4)

Debate resumed from 11 December 2001, on motion by Mr Quinlan:

MR HUMPHRIES (Leader of the Opposition) (5.54): Mr Speaker, I will be brief about this bill. The opposition will support the bill. It contains essentially two provisions. One is the provision that amplifies the sort of information which is required to be tabled in this place when a supplementary appropriation bill is brought forward. Given that, as I said in my previous remarks, we are using these provisions or these devices more frequently, it would make sense to make sure that the information provided to members is as helpful as possible, so it makes sense to amplify that information. That is obviously going to make it easier for members to read second appropriation documents when they are tabled. I assume that the supplementary budget paper tabled in respect of the previous bill actually conforms with the new requirements, even though that would be anticipating the passage of the bill. Mr Quinlan does not know, but I assume that it does; anyway, we will see.

Mr Speaker, the second provision deals with what the Auditor-General has identified as a discrepancy between the practice with respect to the Treasurer's Advance and the use of supplementary appropriations to appropriate more money. Without going into the details of what the discrepancy might be, the government has made a decision to align the law with practice, rather than practice with the law. I think it is a sensible decision to have made and I would therefore support the amendments which have come forward to effect that change to the law.

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