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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4445 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: In May, which transformed into an urgent problem. But you have to say that, that being the case, it is hardly surprising that neither you, between November 2001 and May 2002, acted on the previous audits on the subject-

Mr Wood: No, we were.

MR HUMPHRIES: To the extent that nothing was done urgently before that point in time and, similarly, the previous government had not done anything urgently about this problem between apparently June 2000 and November 2001 when it left office. So, attempting to pretend that this is all the previous government's fault, that that government should have done something about it, lacks-

Mr Stanhope: You should have.

MR HUMPHRIES: You just have not followed the argument, Mr Stanhope. It lacks credibility because you did not act on it for nine months after coming to office.

Mr Stanhope: We acted on it, with alacrity.

MR HUMPHRIES: We were acting on it as well, in that case, in the same kind of way. But the second, and more telling, concern about this proposition from the government is that they are saying that somehow the importance of the issue confronting the government entitled them to dishonour the mechanisms built around the Treasurer's Advance. There was a misuse of the Treasurer's Advance; that is what the Auditor says. If we quote that in this debate, we are within our rights. He found that there was a misuse of the Treasurer's Advance. You say that somehow this is exonerated by virtue of the importance of the issue that generated the action. I say that that is nonsense; there can be no relationship between those things. The end does not justify the means in this respect.

But there is another problem with the proposition that the government puts forward, Mr Deputy Speaker. We have been told by Ms Dundas in this debate that there was an appropriation in the 2002-03 Appropriation Bill, presented at the beginning of June 2002, for fire rectification work in the 2002-03 financial year. It was $16 million over two financial years, beginning in 2002-03. So you had appropriated money from the beginning of that financial year, 2002-03.

Mr Wood: It came out of your budget, the $10 million.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, I am referring to the $16 million in your budget papers. The ownership agreement for ACT Housing, page 44, refers to an allocation of some $16 million for the period 2002-03 and 2003-04 for improved fire safety. So you were appropriating that money from the beginning of the 2002-03 financial year. As you know, under the Supply Act arrangements, you can spend that money from 1 July of that financial year. You do not need to wait until the Appropriation bill is passed; you can start to spend it from the very beginning of the financial year.

We are talking about the need to spend money in the space of, let's say, 16 days-between 14 June when this instrument was signed by the Treasurer and 30 June. You were already appropriating, let's say, $8 million from 1 July to start spending on housing

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