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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 4 May 2004) . . Page.. 1708 ..

down by some of the decisions that they have made and in the way they have manipulated this committee process to their own political ends. I hold the committee process in high regard and would hate to think that this group of ministers may follow this pattern in the future. Once again I commend this report to the Assembly.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (11.03): The government’s appropriation bill is an important way for it to gain extra funding to carry out projects. As the committee has not had the time to look at all issues in the bill it should not be assumed that all issues have just been given a tick. It has taken time to look at a number of significant issues. The first is how we ensure in future budgets that proper allowance is made for known wages growth. It appears the government has salted away 1.3 per cent of the current year’s budget for pay increases for public servants. It clearly knew that on 31 March all of the EBAs would become due and that there would be substantial pay increases, given the pressure from the Commonwealth.

We have heard many of the ministers talking about trying to compete with the Commonwealth and yet you have to remember that the Treasurer delivered a budget for this year that was supposedly in deficit by $7.7 million. It is only good luck that it may end up substantially in surplus. This shows the lack of foresight of this government in putting aside the proper amounts. It is only with luck that they can afford to pay public servants any pay increases at all or, through appropriation, they would have had to take the budget further into deficit.

Recommendation 1 simply makes the point that proper allowance needs to be made for things that are known to occur. We often get in this place, “We didn’t know it was going to happen. That’s why we have either used the TA or brought forward an appropriation bill.” When something was known it was not covered anyway. That is the point of recommendation 1.

Recommendation 2 deals with the case of the firm “Wizard”. Mrs Cross has covered that fairly comprehensively. The recommendation says that the government should act in as short a timeframe as possible and in agreement with an independent arbitrator and the process it sets up. There seems to be resistance from the government to deal with this fairly. I would like to highlight the fact that an agreement was reached in March 2002 that it would be settled by July 2002. Here we are in May 2004 still dealing with an issue that could have been gone through much quicker. It is important that, when these cases arise, they are dealt with quickly. Recommendation 2 simply calls on the government to treat Wizard fairly and to do it quickly, in accordance with the process that they agreed to through the independent arbitrator.

Recommendation 3 deals with the hoary old issue of the Treasurer’s Advance—whether you are using it or not. In this place on 12 February, the Minister for Education told us that the Treasurer’s Advance was being used for child protection and that it was urgent money. The minister and the then Acting Treasurer, also known as the Chief Minister, had agreed that the Treasurer’s Advance be used for a $1.8 million additional funding for child protection. It turns out that what we were told is basically not true, the Treasurer’s Advance was not used then; it has not been used today and that any funding needed for child protection will probably not be needed until the month of June. I think we would all agree that, if additional money is required for child protection, it should be there. The

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