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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2038 ..

development of the appropriation bill, departments were able to find the necessary resources from within their existing appropriations while they awaited the passage of this bill. This raised some interesting questions about when Treasurer’s Advance was going to be used, the process that unfolded as an appropriation bill was further being developed and the crossover and confusion that arose then. Some questions were put to the ministers about that process. It all served as an important reminder that the Financial Management Act needs some clarity in it.

Treasurer’s Advance should not be the first place the government turns if it believes that its existing appropriated moneys are not sufficient. It should be the last resort for urgent and unforeseen expenditure, so that Treasurer’s Advance is kept aside for when things go suddenly and substantially wrong. A major disaster such as the January 2003 bushfires can occur at any time, and it would not be prudent to use Treasurer’s Advance for non-urgent items, because that leaves the possibility of money not being available when it is actually needed. Of course, if an item truly were urgent and there were need for a supplementary appropriation, I am sure that the Assembly would agree to sit and discuss that appropriation bill, as was the case with the 2003 bushfire response, where a mix of Treasurer’s Advance and supplementary appropriation bills was used to address the rebuilding.

I again make the point that I am particularly glad that the Assembly was given a chance to properly scrutinise proposed spending in this appropriation bill, and because of that scrutiny I have some comments to make about the items that are in the bill. The government’s plans to fund a commercialisation investment fund were first flagged in the economic white paper. At the time of the release of that paper, I expressed a view that there were better ways to use taxpayers’ money, if the goal was to support local industry.

The ACT government has made some very expensive mistakes in the past, and we would not like to see that repeated. At the launch of the economic white paper, the Treasurer himself listed a string of failed ACT government business ventures, including Totalcare, the International Hotel School and the V8 Supercar race. Yet the government is making a decision to invest $10 million of taxpayers’ money into more business ventures, which it will decide upon.

The investment sector is one of the best judges of whether ideas have commercial potential. A professional manager overseeing use of funds would not make the same judgment as investors deciding how to use their own money. I believe the government should be linking our local researchers with entrepreneurs, who would help them to present themselves as well as possible to the market and provide them with the skills they need to generate working capital. Venture capital investment ties up a large amount of money that we need for investments that directly benefit the wider community.

To build and sustain our business sector, the ACT government should stay focused on capacity building, sustaining our research facilities and helping develop commercialisation plans. Spending millions on venture capital diverts resources from the capacity building programs we need to create sustainable industries that do not need government handouts.

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