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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4439 ..

MR QUINLAN: It is "misuse"now, but in the context of when this decision was taken, I think we had pretty good advice, a panel of advice, in terms of need-the legal opinion on the need to act now and the need to make a full commitment-and advice from Treasury. I think it was a reasonable decision to take.

I respect the Auditor-General. I think he has been a good Auditor-General. However, at that time we may have had a different interpretation of the act, and I still hold to that marginally different interpretation. If you want to know about funds being allocated in one way or another in a given year and rolled over, we roll over every year millions of dollars for capital works.

Mrs Dunne: This is not a roll over.

MR QUINLAN: It is a roll over of the Treasurer's Advance. I paid it out in June, with the understanding that it would be rolled over, I am sorry.

Mrs Dunne: You cannot roll over the Treasurer's Advance.

MR QUINLAN: Sorry. I didn't roll over the Treasurer's Advance. Housing was going to roll over the capital advance, the capital injection, so you can do that. That is why we have in section 34B of the Financial Management Act:

If at the end of a financial year amounts appropriated for a department for that financial year are held in a departmental banking account, the amounts may be applied at the end of that financial year for the purposes for which they were appropriated.

We may get a refined legal opinion that says payment out of the Treasurer's Advance is not equivalent to appropriation. I will accept that, if I get that opinion. But let me tell you that, firstly, I understood that this was legal-

Mr Humphries: So did Mrs Carnell about Bruce Stadium.

MR QUINLAN: That the overnight loan was legal! Come on! And the eight or nine cabinet submissions that contained incorrect or misleading information! To repeat the phrase that Mrs Dunne used, pull the other one!

Mr Humphries: The Auditor has made a ruling.

MR QUINLAN: The Auditor has said very little more this year than he said last year, Mr Humphries, for that series of payments that you made to the Canberra Cosmos and that series of payments you made to the Belconnen stadium. Excuse me! An important point is that this was notified to the Assembly; it was not done secretly. In August, I notified it to you.

Mr Humphries: That is not true.

MR QUINLAN: In doing your job, Mr Humphries, you looked at it and you also thought it was okay. Should I resign? In that case, should you resign as shadow Treasurer because you also accepted it? Come on!

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