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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2326 ..
MS DUNDAS
(continuing):run smoothly and that the funds will be expended as this Assembly has been told they will be.
Eight initiatives from last year were rolled over in InTACT to the next financial year. Some were completely withdrawn from the budget; some were partially under way but were not looking to meet their spending targets; some had their funding given back to the government, so that the government could spend elsewhere. Yet all of this information-about how InTACT was operating and if it was meeting the targets this Assembly had been told it was going to meet-was not received until the next budget was then presented.
Failing to commence projects is one way of returning a budget surplus, but it is better to commit funds only to projects that will be commenced because there are always areas of need that are inadequately funded. We need to know how much money is actually being spent. If the government decides that these are projects that are priorities and if it is willing to appropriate millions of dollars to them-and this Assembly believes that is going to be the case-then we will have a reasonable expectation of seeing these things take place and not seeing continuing rollovers.
What InTACT is doing is particularly concerning. As I have said, I hope that this is looked at and that we can have more faith that budget 2003-04 and the initiatives contained therein will take place, as opposed to being rolled over so that we can have this debate again in the 2004-05 budget.
MR SMYTH
(Leader of the Opposition) (5.30): Ms Dundas makes a very appropriate point, particularly in relation to InTACT. One of the recommendations of the committee, and one of the few that the government has agreed to, is recommendation 16, at paragraph 3.4, which says:The Committee recommends that departments and agencies adopt realistic deadlines when undertaking projects running over a number of financial years and appropriate funding for the financial year in which it is genuinely expected to be spent.
This gets at giving a realistic picture of what state the budget is in and what is hoping to be achieved by the government. I am pleased to see that the government response to recommendation 16 is "Agreed". Perhaps what we will not see next year is the large number of rollovers that, as has been so rightly pointed out, do occur.
That is not to say that difficulties will not be encountered. Sometimes the parameters of projects change, and we all appreciate that. But setting unrealistic amounts of money in budgets, with unrealistic timetables, is something that we should all endeavour to avoid.
I have some concerns about the rollover of the 2002-03 voice technology upgrade review initiative, which is going to cost $300,000. I am not sure how you justify $300,000 to review a voice technology upgrade; it seems an inordinate amount of money to be spent on what, in theory, is a commercially viable product that can be bought off the shelf. If a voice technology upgrade is worth $300,000, I would be very surprised-that is just the review; it is not the technology itself.
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