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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Tuesday, 22 June 2004) . . Page.. 2282 ..

document in relation to a framework for future budget presentations, talking about triple bottom line reporting and sustainability in terms of how our budgets are going to work and looking at emerging international accounting standards and the government’s strategic planning processes.

Members of the committee were quite interested in the paper put forth, but were quite concerned that, even though we were told quite clearly that it was a consultation document, there was no framework for consultation in terms of the ideas expressed in the supplementary budget paper. We think that that is a great shame, especially as we only have 12 months before the next budget is due. So we urge the government to put forth a consultation mechanism, some kind of way of progressing the discussion that they have indicated they want to have in relation to the supplementary budget paper.

I turn to the issues to which I would like to draw the Assembly’s attention. We discussed Totalcare and how the devolution of the Totalcare businesses is actually going. Through the estimates committee we learnt that the original proposal that was put to this Assembly about how Totalcare businesses will be transferred to the Department or Urban Services or health is not actually being followed. It looks like the fleet service, which was meant to be the first function to go to the Department of Urban Services, not be moved to the Department of Urban Services and that there are particular problems there.

That highlights the fact that this Assembly needs to be kept informed of what is happening with the devolution of Totalcare. It does have economic impacts not only in terms of the provision of extra money in the budget, but also in terms of keeping track of where those business units are going. The Assembly does need to be kept informed on that and I hope that the government will look favourably upon the recommendation on that.

We discussed the Stadiums Authority, an issue that I thought was quite interesting. The statement of intent of the Stadiums Authority clearly states that there are maintenance issues that need to be addressed at the stadium; that, whilst it complied with the building code when it was redeveloped in 1999, it no longer complies with current building codes and there are particular issues that need to be addressed there; and that the maintenance budget is relatively low compared with the expected long-term maintenance budget needed for this building complex. So, in terms of ensuring safety is maintained at the stadium, we recommended that the government increase funding to the Stadiums Authority so that it can meet its ongoing repair program and keep the stadium as safe as possible.

We also discussed a range of issues in relation to the education portfolio. Whilst we have had a discussion about a number of them before, I would like to highlight the statement from the minister that there would be no productivity savings targeted at CIT in the 2004-05 financial year. That, whilst a very small statement, was a very important one. For far too long, the Canberra Institute of Technology has been working to productivity savings and has seen its budget diminish in real terms. This impacts on the development of TAFE in the territory. Whilst substantial funds—$9.5 million over four years—are to be allocated to vocational education and training, it is not clear that this money will be going through to the Canberra Institute of Technology. We need to support that

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