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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2880 ..
MR QUINLAN: Well, we may have been talking at cross purposes. Initially the Carnell government undertook a very substantial amount of review and said, "Darn, we're not putting that in in one year. We'll spread that over 12. We will adopt an American standard." Does any of this ring a bell? Several years ago the Carnell government adopted an American standard, in the absence of an Australian standard, that superannuation adjustment would be written off over 12 years. A very substantial adjustment, which I think I was able to identify somewhere in amongst the Actew debate-the "we want to sell all of Actew"-was then transferred, effectively set aside, and written off over 12 years. So an amount-and I have discussed this before in this place-of $20-something million was added to the bottom line in each of those 12 years even though it was just an adjustment to a figure on a balance sheet.
I understand, and I am advised by my officers, that the Auditor-General thinks that those sorts of adjustments should be brought to book immediately. I can't recall the exchanges between ourselves and the Auditor-General, but that is the area that it is highly likely both I and the Under-Treasurer of the time would have been alluding to in the Estimates Committee. You might not want to accept what I say but I am sure you would want to accept what the former Under-Treasurer advised the Estimates Committee.
Mr Humphries: About what, though?
MR QUINLAN: About the difference we have and the advice that I have received that the Auditor-General is in the process of changing, or is likely to change, his opinion on the treatment of review adjustments arising out of periodic actuarial reassessment of the superannuation liability.
Let me say this, and I will be brief: there is, as far as I am aware, an issue within the superannuation accounting process where the Auditor may be changing his opinion.
Mr Humphries: I'll take your word for that.
MR QUINLAN: And he may be changing his opinion to agree with something I have been saying for a number of years. So we might get him on the other one. But it is important for you and members of at least the Estimates Committee to understand the concept of the sinking fund. You are saying that even though interest earned-the accruing interest from time to time on that fund-is committed by virtue of the commitment to employees at a later date and will not come back into your coffers, you want to count it on the bottom line. That is what the Auditor wants and that is the interpretation that I have been given as to current accounting standards, and I disagree with current accounting standards but for logical reason.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Sitting suspended from 6.22 to 8.00 pm.
Proposed expenditure-part 11-Health and Community Care, $428,400,000 (net cost of outputs), $13,493,000 (capital injection) and $5,624,000 (payments on behalf of the territory), totalling $447,517,000.
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