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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2258 ..
MR QUINLAN
(continuing):that I am assured by my officials that each of the agencies had sufficient funds, at that point in time, to meet their salary bills.
That might mean that, if this Appropriation Bill were refused, they may have trouble paying their other accounts by the end of the year. However, people should be aware that, later today, hopefully, this Assembly will pass a number of gross appropriation lines. The Assembly does not-and I do not think it should-approve every line item in the budget, but it approves the budget in its magnitude by agency. The capacity was there.
It also shows a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of Mr Smyth about how the timing of payments will take place. Beyond 30 June, many accounts will still be paid. They will still be rolling in. We will not be closing the chequebook for this financial year on 30 June. In fact, there will be huge amounts paid after the event, as the bills come in.
Mr Smyth
: So more back-pay will be paid after 30 June?MR QUINLAN
: I said all of the bills, Mr Smyth.To compound the lack of understanding-if you want an indication of the lack of understanding he has of this process-Mr Smyth asked a question about why I am asking for $19 million when $13 million was budgeted. That shows a fundamental lack of understanding. You do not understand the difference between a budget and an appropriation bill. A budget is the estimate of all the money to be spent in the financial year. The appropriation is the requests for approval to spend cash.
Later, you will see a request to spend $10 million. It will be an additional appropriation but it will be in the budget, Mr Smyth. Basic lesson-budgeting ACT 101. Unfortunately, you do not understand it.
As an aside, more than anything, as Mr Smyth was eager to put out a couple of press releases about what Mr Quinlan did wrong in relation to paying the public servants, you have the wrong bloke. He paid his; Mr Wood paid his; Mr Stanhope paid his and Ms Gallagher paid hers-I do not pay them.
Mr Smyth
: So you did not approve the drawdown from the CFU?MR QUINLAN
: It is the nature of my portfolios, Mr Smyth, that I have few public servants directly working for me. You cannot help yourself. I am flattered by the attention, but we have seen a sequence of misunderstanding of the process exhibited by Mr Smyth. You do not even know the difference between the budget and the Appropriation Bill. That was the cornerstone of what you said.I will relate something. I discussed your negativity with a couple of friends over the weekend. In conversation, I said, "Isn't it sad that we have this negative opposition and they seem to have taken the political low road?"I used the word "grubby", I have to say. I was corrected, because a rather wise person, for whom I have a lot of respect, said, "Have you thought of the obvious, Mr Quinlan?"I asked, "What is that?"They said, "Maybe that is all there is."
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