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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2629 ..

However, that is not all. We also have a fascinating insight into how this government makes spending decisions, and how it has not exercised restraint when making those decisions. The current ACT Treasurer described his use of the Treasurer’s advance during the 2002-03 financial year as “frugal”. I admit that it is sometimes very difficult to understand Quinlan-speak, but in this situation all I can do is read what he said, and it goes like this:

The final expenditure against the Treasurer’s Advance in 2002-03 totalled $19.178 million, leaving $0.222 million unallocated—very frugal, I would suggest.

It may have been said tongue in cheek, but this Treasurer would have us, and the ACT community, believe that he and his government are being frugal because only 99 per cent of the total allocation of the Treasurer’s advance was spent. What absolute rubbish! It seems that, to Mr Quinlan’s ignorance of economics, we can now add his ignorance of the English language.

Mr Hargreaves: Coming from you that is rich! What is the price of a newspaper these days?

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MR SMYTH: According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, frugal means to use sparingly, and yet we have a Treasurer who congratulates himself because he only spent 99 per cent of the funds that were available. There is no way we can describe spending almost to the limit of one’s budget as being frugal. I believe a little history of this matter is relevant to put this bill into context. It is crucial that this Assembly has some means of monitoring the profligate spending of this government and, ultimately, of ensuring that this government is called to account, not for being frugal, but for spending to excess.

Mr Speaker, the government’s bill completely recasts the current section 18 in the Financial Management Act. If we pass that bill, we will establish the principles for using the Treasurer’s advance, set out the requirements for the consideration of using the Treasurer’s advance, explain quite clearly what is meant by expenditure, provide for a report to the Assembly each time the release of funds from the Treasurer’s advance is authorised, and provide for a summary report on the use of the Treasurer’s advance after the end of each financial year.

This approach seems sound and logical given that all the knowledge we have gained in the territory about using the Treasurer’s advance, including the comprehensive report from the Public Accounts Committee and the experience of other Australian jurisdictions in using similar provisions.

A fundamental issue with any changes to section 18 of the Financial Management Act is ensuring that the fire safety upgrade fiasco or, as the Treasurer described it in the Assembly, the “misinterpretation of section 18”, is not repeated. As the explanatory statement for the bill notes, “The intention of this definition” of expenditure:

is to restrict the use of Treasurer’s Advance to payments for output delivery or payments on behalf of the Territory, as opposed to simply transferring cash to other departments or…authorities.

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