Page 3821 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 4 December 2007
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is appropriate, not just putting a bucket of money out there, not having any projects because it is beyond the creative capacity of the Chief Minister. He never goes to much in the arts field; so he figures he can buy over the arts community by having a lump of money there for people to build outdoor public art.
But the fact of the matter is that appropriate arts initiatives ought to be supported. Simply taking an arbitrary one per cent across the board on capital works, without even having the ideas worked out, to me, is indefensible.
Mr Stanhope: It is Gary Humphries’s policy. I just adopted it.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR MULCAHY: I am not interested. Gary Humphries is not in this place. Last time I looked, Bill Stefaniak is running the show here.
The Chief Minister conceded in estimates hearings before the public accounts committee that this expenditure is not earmarked for any specific project. It only goes to show the arbitrary nature of the appropriation and, indeed, of the entire percent-for-art policy. Thus, we have the rather ridiculous spectacle of a second appropriation bill in a single financial year now asking the Assembly to approve extra expenditure. For what? For art! What kind of art? We do not know yet but for some kind of art, some time. Again I say, “Is this the level to which parliamentary scrutiny of government appropriation has sunk?” Here we are, we do not know much about the arts, but we will just put a lump of money out there and hope we can win a few people over.
Then we move to the OHS—
Mr Hargreaves: You will have to tell Mr Pratt about that.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR MULCAHY: We will get to you, Mr Hargreaves; just give us a little bit of time.
The bill will appropriate $1,773 million over four years in order to retain the Occupational Health and Safety Commissioner. This is an item of expenditure that comes as rather a shock to me, since this cost was not revealed to the opposition in the course of briefings on the OHS restructure in the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2007. In fact, it is somewhat more than just a rude shock. It is a complete derogation of the responsibilities of the government to provide accurate costing information to the Assembly for the bills that Assembly members are asked to approve. For the government to push through its bill, without disclosing the costs to members of the Assembly and then, only a short time later, ask for funding for the scheme, which has now already been passed, is, in my view, quite duplicitous. So I say yet again, “Is this the level to which parliamentary scrutiny of government appropriation has sunk?”
We are linked with some areas. Although it is not a major area, the matter of ACT judges’ pensions came up before the committee. The bill includes additional
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