Page 920 - Week 04 - Thursday, 3 May 2007
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charges. The opposition will be supporting this bill and the amendment to be put forward.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.14): I want to endorse some of Mr Mulcahy’s comments. I thank the officers that gave my staff a briefing. Because I see these changes as pretty much technical changes, and useful at that, I too will be supporting this bill.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Minister for the Environment, Water and Climate Change, Minister for the Arts) (12.14): I thank members for their support for this bill. I think it needs to be said, however, in relation to Mr Mulcahy’s huffing and puffing about this odious practice of the government’s and mine of introducing legislation and from time to time seeking to have legislation treated as a matter of urgency, that when Mr Mulcahy rose and began his diatribe, his leader, Mr Stefaniak, stood up and left the chamber.
I know why he did it. Yesterday Mr Stefaniak asked me to agree to have a bill that he had introduced dealing with racing and gaming debated today. Mr Stefaniak left the chamber rather than having to listen to a diatribe from Mr Mulcahy about the evils of dealing with legislation urgently. Mr Mulcahy has confected some nonsense about this odious practice that I had introduced to have urgent matters dealt with urgently, but yesterday his leader asked me to agree to debate today a bill that Mr Stefaniak introduced yesterday.
That puts Mr Mulcahy’s comments in context. Mr Mulcahy said that I, as Treasurer, have adopted a policy that has never before been used or seen by a Treasurer in the ACT. He says it is outrageous that from time to time governments seek to debate early bills that have been introduced. Yesterday his leader introduced a bill and then asked me to debate it and pass it today. That puts in context the confected nonsense in Mr Mulcahy’s contribution to this debate.
There was some time pressure on the Treasury in particular to finalise the administrative arrangements in relation to the implementation of this bill before the end of this financial year, and the government was seeking to relieve that. This is not a controversial matter. It is a quite straightforward matter. It was announced in last year’s budget. We were seeking to introduce it before the end of this financial year so that it could take operation.
It was in that context, because of the workload and because of the need for departments to actually have that capacity that the government sought to have this matter dealt with in an earlier time frame. It is essentially non-controversial. It is important. It actually eases the stress and the workload which Treasury face, particularly at this time of the year. These last few months of the financial year are an incredibly stressful time within Treasury as they work to put together and deliver our annual budget. That was the context.
The bill that we are debating is essentially about accountability and transparency and the use of public funds. We all know how fundamental that is to the democratic system of government that we have. The Financial Management Act provides a strong
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